The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission is meeting in New Bern today to take comments on draft proposals to supplement Amendment 1 of the Southern Flounder Fishery Management Plan. That might sound like a routine housekeeping step needed to ensure the viability of the state’s fishery resources. However, it is not. For newcomers to the […]
Community News Brief | Full Article
Park Service approves buffer modification plan
The National Park Service has approved a plan for how it will comply with changes in wildlife protections on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore that are required by legislation passed last December by the U.S. Congress. Among other things, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore legislation, passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Bill, instructs […]
Seashore News | Full Article
Guest Column: County officials must unite on dredging and nourishment issues
It’s a familiar story; a family comes to Dare County on vacation. The wife and her friends want to go deep sea fishing but can’t because inlets are shoaled so badly that no boats can get out. When the husband takes the kids to the beach, he finds it narrow and cluttered with debris from […]
Local News | Full Article
38 seniors receive diplomas at Cape Hatteras Secondary School
Thirty-eight seniors received their diplomas at Saturday evening’s graduation ceremony at Cape Hatteras Secondary School of Coastal Studies. Friends and family members of the graduates filled William P. Dillon Gymnasium on a hot and humid night as thunderstorms threatened but didn’t rain on the parade of the Class of 2015. The Cape Hatteras Secondary School […]
Local News | Full Article
At long last, a new Bonner Bridge will be built
After a quarter century of planning, studies, bickering, and finally legal challenges from environmental groups, the decrepit 2.7-mile Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet will be replaced with a new parallel span. The announcement came in a news release about 1:30 this afternoon that the North Carolina Department of Transportation, along with the state […]
Local News | Full Article
Legislative update: Sales tax redistribution is back, will still hurt Dare
General Assembly members worked at break-neck speed last week. Substantial additions were made to some bills, language was stripped out and new topics added into others, and a bill about local government reform became an elections bill. But the bill that gained the most attention was one that had been dormant for months but now […]
Local News | Full Article
State and federal officials reach agreement on bridge replacement
The North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have finalized a settlement agreement with Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, allowing NCDOT to replace the aging Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over the […]
Local News | Full Article
UPDATE: Cause of Avon wildfire still under investigation
The wildfire that began late Friday night, June 12, just north of Avon was 100 percent contained by early Saturday evening, according to David Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Hallac said the total area burned by the blaze was somewhere between 15 and 20 acres. The cause is still undetermined, though the […]
Local News | Full Article
Crews work to contain 20-acre wildfire north of Avon
A wildfire north of Avon that closed Highway 12 for more than four hours last night has burned approximately 20 acres in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. At noon today, the fire was about 50 percent contained, according to Bert Plante, fire management officer for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and incident commander. The […]
Local News | Full Article
DOT claims payments to idle contractor are ‘confidential’
It’s been nine months this week — 276 days — since the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced that it was stopping work on the permanent bridge over Pea Island Inlet and entering into negotiations with the Southern Environmental Law Center to end the legal wrangling over replacing the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon […]
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