If you thought you had done your civic duty submitting public comments on the National Park Service?s Draft Environmental Impact Statement on off-road vehicle rulemaking on the seashore, think again.
In fact, 2010 might be the busiest year ever for making public comment on projects and issues that will have a profound effect on our life and lifestyle on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. And they will also affect our visitors and off-island property owners.
The comment period on the Park Service DEIS ended May 11.
No sooner had we put that behind us than the North Carolina Department of Transportation issued its latest in a long line of environmental studies on the replacement of the aging Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet.
It is imperative that all islanders and visitors make comment to NCDOT about this environmental assessment.
?I?m worried that people think this time, it?s a done deal,? said Beth Midgett, chairperson of the Dare County Citizen?s Committee on Replacing the Bonner Bridge.
She emphatically says that ?this is far from a done deal.? If after analyzing public comment DOT thinks that all environmental issues have not been sufficiently addressed in the preferred alternative, there will be more studies and more years of delay before we have a new bridge.
The latest study is a rather unusual Environmental Assessment of the new preferred alternative ? which is called Parallel Bridge Corridor with Highway 12 Transportation Management Plan Alternative. It calls for the new bridge over Oregon Inlet to be built as soon as possible. Information generated by a coastal monitoring program would determine what to build in future phases and when that work would occur.
DOT has said that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) believes that the new EA and the 2008 Final Environmental Impact Statement ?adequately document the range of impacts that could be anticipated with the Preferred Alternative? and that ?the changes identified in the EA would not result in new, significant impacts not previously identified.?
However, if public comment does not support the latest environmental study, DOT will have to start over in the middle ? again.
There will have to be a Supplement to the Final Environmental Statement, which was issued in 2008. There have already been two supplements to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which was first issued in 1993.
A supplement to the FEIS would take months ? at the very least ? and would have to be followed by another public comment period and analysis.
The Bonner Bridge was opened in 1963 with an expected life span of 30 years. We?re now 17 years past that date. The bridge now has a safety rating of 2 out of a possible 100, though DOT says it is still safe for travel.
It?s been kept safe for the past two decades by millions of dollars in repair work, and millions more will be needed if the environmental studies further delay the construction.
Work on the replacement bridge, which just a few years ago was expected to be completed this year, will not be completed until at least 2014.
Dare County Citizen?s Committee to Replace the Bonner Bridge is conducting a series of informational meetings this week to answer questions from residents and visitors about the project and to help them make public comments.
The schedule is:
? Monday, June 28, at 7 p.m. at the Hatteras Village Civic Center, sponsored by the Hatteras Village Civic Association.
? Tuesday, June 29, at 7 p.m. at the Ocracoke School Commons.
? Wednesday, June 30, at 7 p.m. at the Avon Volunteer Fire Department, sponsored by the Avon Property Owners Association and the Greater Kinnakeet Shores Property Owners.
Next week on July 6, 7, and 8, the Department of Transportation will conduct informational meetings and formal public comment hearings.
You can make comments at the meetings or submit comments in writing before Aug. 9.
It is every bit as important for all of us to comment on the bridge replacement as it was for us to comment on the Park Service DEIS on ORV regulations.
Winning the fight for reasonable access for all to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore is important to our lives, lifestyles, and economy. However, it will be a hollow victory if we do not have a safe bridge.
The bridge is essential to our lives and economy. It brings visitors and supplies to the island and takes fish in trucks off the island. Power and fiber optic lines travel over the bridge to bring us electricity and technology. It gives us access to medical care not available on the island. And so much more.
Replacing the aging Bonner Bridge is, above all, a public safety issue. Though the bridge is safe today, how much longer can it survive the pounding from the shifting sands and currents of Oregon Inlet?
We cannot wait until there is an accident or bridge collapse to take action.
We needed action at least a decade ago, but we must have it now.
We?ve done enough environmental studies. It?s time to move forward.
If you live here, you need the bridge. If you vacation here, you need the bridge.
Take just a few minutes to tell NCDOT at a meeting next month, by mail, or by e-mail that you support the preferred alternative and that you want a new and safe bridge now.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Click here for information on DOT informational and public comment meetings and information on making public comments.
Click here for DOT?s answers to frequently asked questions about the bridge replacement and the Environmental Assessment.
Click here for a timeline on the 20-year effort to replace the Bonner Bridge.
Click here to read a letter from members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar urging action on replacing the bridge.
Don?t get me wrong here. I want a new bridge but I think the article, like many comments I see, is misleading with the ?safety rating?. It is not a ?safety? rating but a sufficiency rating. It includes much much more than just strutural integrity which makes up about 60% of the rating.
Here is a link with the factors considered. Note: NC uses this Federal rating as well so don?t worry that the one I googled up is Kansas
http://www.transportation.org/sites/brid..
Agreed, sufficiency rating is the correct term.
However, when you combine all the facts we know about the Bridge, the sufficiency rating is just one fact that causes concern. The bridge has served 17 years and counting past it?s projected service life in an extremely harsh environment with no replacement option yet chosen. The repairs currently occurring were from a list generated by engineers in the 2006 special structural assessment done after the 2006 biennial inspection lowered the sufficiency rating to 2 out of 100. The stated goal of the structural assessment was to determine actions that need to be taken to keep the bridge “open and functional at current design loads until the year 2016, a 10 year service life”. Even if we could start building next spring, with a 4 year build time, we are pushing the 2016 envelope.
The service life of this bridge has been extended repeatedly by repairs that occur at an ever-increasing cost to the taxpayers. NCDOT is doing an outstanding job of keeping the bridge open and load sufficient however, at it?s heart the bridge is a structure that was completed in 1962 and was engineered for a 30-year service life. Much like an older woman (or man) who has surgery to help with the ravages of time, what you see on the outside is only part of the story, age matters in lifespan.
Our goal is not to scare the public but to impress upon all that we do not have ?all the time in the world? to make this decision. We are living on borrowed time as it is and it is well past time for decisive action to be taken. Move forward with replacement of the structure as quickly as possible.
One has to marvel at the thinking that led to an initial 30 year service life projection. Let?s work not only to get a bridge, but also to write specs so that our kids, and grandkids, don?t have to go thru this again.
I emailed my supportive comments to Drew Joyner this morning. My question to y?all is: do you think this move was prompted by Sen. Basnight?s letter to the prez.?
Hey Folks:
Who are the folks that are holding us hostage again on the bridge replacement? Well imagine that ?..its Defenders of Wildlife (DOW), Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) , National Audubon Society. They won?t be happy until all public access can be managed with a lock and key. These are the same folks that are complaining about the Mid-Sound short bridge to Corolla while putting their support behind a 17 mile bridge around Pea Island. CAN THEY HAVE IT BOTH WAYS? Are we the only people that can see the master plan to isolate these islands?
Take a look at the changes that NPS is considering when the bridge is built. Ramp 4 will be closed and Ramp 1-2 are already closed. They propose a new Ramp 3 to be built??.one ramp for access to Oregon Inlet. Picture this: Ramp 3 with a kiosk and a fee to enter the beach if and when the kiosk is open. Otherwise you may be able to take the tram to visit the Bodie Island lighthouse and look at the ocean. Check out the alternative transportation study for Bodie Island.
I guess some day my grandchildren may get to SEE the ocean at CHNSRA but may never enjoy the beauty and pleasure their parents enjoyed as children.
Beth,
As I said, don?t get me wrong, and I agree with the urgency for action to get the short bridge started.
However, when sufficiency is spun as safety, credibility goes in the tank.
Done.
Will be interesting to see where this goes from here. It?s totally ridiculous that this has taken as long as it has.
Enough is enough! Build the d*mn bridge!!!!!!
Does anyone recall what the sufficiency rating was for the bridge that collasped in Minnisotta?
Does anyone recall what was going on at the time? Was the bridge loaded with construction vehicles, etc.?
How do you think the current bridge will handle the stress of 2 lanes heading north and packed with vehicles for 2-3 days prior to an approaching hurricane? My guess is if there is a collaspe, this will be the time when it happens and the number of injuries and deaths will not be limited to those on the bridge but also needless injuries and deaths from the hurricane that follows.
At the very least, I would expect the poor condition of the bridge could be a factor in many not trying to evacuate for a hurricane.
The Minnesota collapse was determined to be from a faulty design.
A similar collapse a number of years ago on I95 in CT was due to inadequate design (pin and hangar construction) to save $s.
Here is a video of another faulty design. Tacoma Narrows
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-zczJXSx..
So a new bridge does not necessarily guarantee we will all get off without a collapse.
The Bonner has been load tested and repaired where the load test showed it was needed to keep it safe. Could it collapse, sure. Likely, I don?t think so any more than many others. For example, the I85 bridge across the Yadkin River that is in roughly the same category/age as Bonner.
In my opinion the implied and direct safety spin on the bridge re sufficiency is no better than the environ spin that the closures are all about ORVs and not pedestrians.
Again we need a new bridge started ASAP, but spin is not the way to get there.
Tell it like it is with the whole factual story.
A point on bridge comments.
Just like a comment on the DEIS along the lines of ?Alt F is too restrictive and I can?t get where I want to and it needs to be less restrictive? is nearly useless; a comment on the bridge like ?It?s unsafe, going to fall down and needs to be replaced now? will also get little attention.
Comments need to be constructive on what you see as undesirable with a proposed solution.
For example I intend to submit one saying 2 of the alts for the Pea Island corridor that might be used in the future, show no apparent access to the New Inlet boat ramp. If possible access to that ramp should be provided since it?s one of a very few public ones on HI.
Salvo Jimmy, it was nice to finally meet you at the public workshop this past week. In this case, I must agree to disagree with your statement that “implied and direct safety spin on the bridge re sufficiency is no better than the environ spin that the closures are all about ORVs and not pedestrians”.
I am not sure who you are accusing of “spin” but since our group http://www.replacethebridgenow.com is the largest organized group advocating for the replacement, I do wish to set the record straight.
As spokesperson, have always used the correct term “sufficiency rating” in regards to the Bonner Bridge’s ability to stay in service. That being said, I fully believe it is not “spin” but a substantiated fact to say, the bridge has safety issues and needs to be replaced ASAP.
This bridge currently rates a 4 out of 100 (up from its low of a 2 of 100 which it had been for the past 4 years)…that is not an official rating yet, but it is my understanding that NCDOT will be upgrading the rating 2 points due to the effects of the $36 million dollars of repairs called for by structural engineers in 2006 in order to ensure the bridge remaining “open and functional at current design loads until the year 2016, a 10 year service life”.
If I remember correctly, 55% or so of a sufficiency rating is structural adequacy and safety, 15% or so is essentiality for public use (length of detour route), and the remaining 30% relates to serviceability and functional obsolescence. Taking into account only the 55% for safety and structural adequacy, if this were a test in school a grade of 45% (or even 49% if we give benefit of the doubt) is a FAILING grade for safety and structural sufficiency.
I feel as if NCDOT has done an exemplary job of monitoring and repairing this bridge to extend its service life for 17 years and counting. We should all be grateful for their tireless efforts on our behalf.
I think (and pray) it is highly unlikely that we would witness a cataclysmic collapse like that in Minneapolis (this, as you know, is a very different type of bridge), more likely, as she continues to age out, we may be forced to deal with load limits which in and of themselves could cause major daily travel delays, increased costs of goods and services to the Island, and issues of delay in evacuation or emergency services. Envision, for example, only one way traffic on the bridge with a light on either end allowing only one way traffic, imagine, if you will trying to get ambulances through or what we might do if we had a mandatory evacuation…the length of the lines. Those things are also public safety issues.
We, as a group, have been very mindful of the fact that we need to be careful speaking about this issue so that we do not cause unwarranted fears, however, the fact is that there is now a very real danger (if NCDOT is forced to yet another draft supplemental EIS) that we will be facing at the least, another 8 or 9 years before Bonner Bridge replacement. I am no engineer, but as a rational human being, 26 years of service past it’s intended service life of 30 years in an environment as harsh and corrosive as Oregon Inlet feels like a safety issue to myself and to many, many others.
Beth
Not accusing anyone, but I see the ?safety rating? time and again in various places like this blog. Also comments here as well as other places that imply a collapse scenario. I?ve even seen questions asked on some boards if they should worry about crossing the bridge because of the ?safety rating?.
BTW if a bridge meets all safety / strutural adequacy criteria and all other factors are at zero, it would have a sufficiency rating of 55, but that is not a failing grade for safety / structural. Nor is a 45 ? 49 failing because that would be meeting 45 ? 49 / 55 = ~82 ? 89 % of the safety criteria.
Perhaps spin is not what is happening but rather a lack of knowledge as to what the situation really is.
Now hopefully this will be more construction from me.
Here is a comment that I think would carry weight and that anyone can submit. I intend to submit something similar.
I fully agree with the new preferred alternative that builds the parallel (short) bridge ASAP and delays decision on the rest of the route to Rodanmthe to a later time after further study.
Here is background on why I like the new preferred alt
I attended the open house in Rodanthe.
The maps for the various options could be seen much better than trying to view them on line and the changes from the last go ?round were more easily understood.
If you could not attend any of the meetings, the maps are also available at the county office in Buxton.
I think NCDOT was smart to decouple the decision on Rodanthe options at this point so they don?t hold up the short bridge.
The options for Rodanthe are not going to please all and there will be lots of arguing over them.
I eve dropped on lots of conversation on the Rodanthe options.
Folks who have property on the sound in that area don?t like the bridge that takes off Pea Island a couple miles North of Rodanthe and comes back in just before Mac?s (Liberty gas). Blocks their view.
The bridge down the present right of way (ROW) from North of the S-Curve that ends at Mac?s is not liked by folks, including businesses, along that route. View as well as access problems. Mac?s for example at a minimum looks like it would have to be moved.
An option to end that (ROW) bridge just after it enters Rodanthe ( just past Blue Sea Rd) leaves much of the grade level route on by Mirlo Beach still within the 2060 erosion prediction.
The nourishment only option basically nourishes the beach in the North Rodanthe and S-Curve areas with a 20 ft high dune. That is not a heck of a lot different than what is being done now, and we all know how well that works.
I think DOT was also smart in decoupling the remainder of the Pea Island corridor (South end of the bridge to Rodanthe) and delaying that decision. This puts off the ROW issue (can DOT go outside the ROW on Pea Island) until later. They have also come up with a South terminus of the short bridge that apparently (by the words in their handout) satisfies FWS and maintains traffic flow during construction as well as providing access to the parking area at the South end of the bridge.
Thus it appears that the only possible hold up on the short bridge (assuming the preferred alt is approved) would be a lawsuit about DOT dropping the long bridge. However arguments for the long bridge seem to have been highly weakened. Eg. cost, electric rate increase (~ 30%) for new line), storm restrictions like the CBBT of nearly identical 17 mi length, Audubon comments on the roughly 3 mile bridge in Currituck re storm water run off, lost access to Pea Island.
So my bottom line opinion is support of the preferred alt seems the best chance to get a short bridge started soonest.
Sorry, constructive was the word I meant, not construction.
Also don?t take my math as necessarily gospel as there may be weighting factors in the sufficiency criteria that affect the actual numbers. I have not looked at the actual formula, just the link I posted here on the criteria.
While we spin 10 million here, 20 million there because of arguments of our right to build a new bridge through Pea Island in bunk and my comments to Mr. Joyner are directed to this point. The bridge needs to be built now and here is what I had to say
Mr. Drew Joyner
NCDOT-Human Environment Unit
1598 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1598
Ref: Bonner Bridge Replacement Project
TIP No. B-2500
Dare County
Comment Sheet
Dear Drew Joyner,
I would first like to thank you and NCDOT for the opportunity to speak at the public hearing in Buxton, NC on Thursday July 9, 2010 and also for accepting this email as my comments on the Bonner Bridge Replacement Project.
There are few of us left that remember Hatteras Island before 1951 when the road was built from Oregon Inlet to Hatteras, NC and I am happy to say that I am one of them. My mother, Sybil Miller Folb was born in Avon, NC and lived most of her young life in Buxton, NC. My dad, Maurice B. Folb came to Hatteras Island as the Navy Medical Corpsman in the early 1920?s serving over ten years in that capacity and administering health care to the seven villages because the US Public Health doctor was sent off the island sick. Having to travel these seven villages, the numerous life saving stations (Later US Coast Guard) and the naval members of the Radio Wireless Station in Buxton was a challenge and privilege he cherished and spoke of often in my years with him. They moved from the island to Winston-Salem in 1936 where I was born, but most summers Mom and I spent in Buxton with my grandparents. This paragraph is an overview of why the following comments about the need for the new bridge NOW are accurate and appropriate,
My Dad’s arrival required riding the mail boat to the shoals behind Buxton where a skiff was dispatched to retrieve him and his belongings. These were two day trips from Elizabeth City. There were vehicles on the island then, but how they got them here I cannot attest.
When trips were begun from Winston-Salem, NC after moving there, the first trips were about 18 hours and routed over Hwy. 158 to Elizabeth City and on to Whalebone Junction where the road became sand from there to Oregon Inlet. At Oregon Inlet we boarded a 7 or 9 car wooden ferry that placed a landing ramp onto the sand and you drove aboard. Upon reaching Hatteras Island the ferry pulled up to the shore side again letting down its ramp onto the sandy sound-side shore where you had to back off as the ferry only had the one end to load and unload. Vehicles were not 4 wheel drives so you slacked the tires and made your way south the best available route possible. The first few miles you took the edge of the surf if the winds and tides were favorable because the edge of the surf was the hardest and easiest to transverse. However, if the tides were high or the winds pushed the surf up to the dune line where driving had to be done behind the dunes we followed tracks used by the cars before us. Where the bird flooded pond areas are now were most times free of water but hard packed sand and we enjoyed some of the fastest and least restrictive driving areas on the whole trip from Oregon Inlet to Buxton. The area where the three USFW buildings are now was the site of the abandoned Pea Island Lifesaving Station that originally housed the only all Negro staffed lifesaving station on the coast. Dad always commented on the wonderful treatment and fine meals enjoyed when visiting and attending to the medical needs of the men of this station. It also was memorable to me as a very soft area with dunes stretching through making transverse slow and sticky. There was still a working hand water pump at the old station that was a life saver when the car would run hot motoring through the soft sand. From there to Rodanthe remnants of the old New Inlet Bridge stood unused since the inlet filled in and roadways ran where ever the pot holes filled with water were least and the sand was firmest. Cattle and horses had roamed free and if they had cleared a roadbed that suited motorized travel better that was the way we drove.
In 1951-1952 the paved road was completed and travel became so different. It seemed that this was the highest area of the island. The lands to the sound-side and to the dunes of the ocean-side were depressed from the new road. But today the opposite is true. Because there is no longer a presence of free ranging cattle and horses allowed the brush and grasses grow that has captured the sand and built up both sides of the roadway until today many parts of the road are the first to flood in rains and high tides. On several occasions the ocean has eroded area of the beach bringing the surf zone closer to the road, but DOT has moved them west to new areas without dissent as it has always been understood that we, the people of Hatteras Island, were guaranteed right of way for a road through Pea Island and the National Seashore to get from the mainland to the villages of Hatteras Island and Ocracoke. We have seen the roadway moved several hundred feet west in the refuge where it once was east of the refuge headquarter and living quarters and several times west at the south end approaching Rodanthe. The jetty at Oregon Inlet was placed to abate erosion where the south end of the Oregon Inlet Bridge connects to the island, a NPS Camp Ground once flourished and the Coast Guard station was endangered and abondoned.
I have demonstrated above that the Pea Island area of Hatteras Island while in the hands of the people that granted their lands to the USFW for a Refuge and the USFW who allowed the present bridge and continual changing right-of-way be a part of transportation avenue since the arrival of vehicles on the island. Only in recent years have obstructionists in the private sector of environmental special interest groups and out of touch federal managers have these delays been allowed.
The studies and delays are over. The people of Hatteras Island and its visitors no longer will tolerate the endangered chance we take to drive over a present bridge that has a four safety rating. We hold the state of North Carolina and more so these environmental special interest obstructionist groups responsible if, god forbid, this delay in building a replacement bridge causes harm to any of the citizens of these Islands it connects or to its visitors. This intolerance includes any harm to those that may not be able to reach life saving treatment should an event cause passage on this old bridge be compromised. The two year projected short term wait to begin construction is unacceptable, much less allowing any further delaying tactics by any special interest groups or even USFW.
Let the bids go out, create the contracts, build us a bridge and put the monitoring staff in place for the corridor from the bridge to Rodanthe. We saw DOT put together a contract to fix the area that was downed by the barge in October of 1989 and complete the work by February. With the studies over seventeen years that have been done on this project you should be able to let me drive on the new bridge by 2015.
Make this your motto, “COMPLETE THE BONNER BRIDGE BEFORE THE END OF 2015”
You can do it if you try and try you must!
Frank Folb, Sr.
P O Box 448
Avon, NC 27915
http://www.hatteras-island.com
ffff1@mindspring.com