We’ve had a lot of good news this week on the islands, but topping the list has got to be the announcement of an end to the 25-year struggle to replacing the decrepit Herbert C. Bonner bridge over Oregon Inlet.
All of the parties to the legal wrangling over the new bridge met at the north end of Hatteras Island on Monday to announce a negotiated settlement that will allow The North Carolina Department of Transportation to move forward — with a new span over Oregon Inlet and solutions to two of the most troublesome areas on Highway 12 in Pea Island refuge.
Even Gov. Pat McCrory flew in for a news conference on a narrow sandy beach on the southside of Oregon Inlet. Parties to the bridge lawsuit, county and state officials, reporters and cameramen, and some islanders gathered in record-high temperatures under a broiling sun to hear statements on the settlement.
The aging Bonner Bridge, opened in 1963 with a useful lifespan of 30 years, in the background behind the speakers provided the perfect photo-op for the occasion. Despite the stifling conditions, the atmosphere was light and upbeat, and a few folks from both sides of the bridge debate joined to wade barefoot in the inlet waters.
If you listen to the audio of the news conference, you can even hear the sound of celebration from folks crossing the bridge during the event — some were honking their horns in approval.
In this blog, I’m not going to rehash the details of the settlement. You can read about it in the Island Free Press story from Monday.
I want to use this space to reiterate that what happened on Monday is very good news for Hatteras Island — and for our neighbors on Ocracoke who also rely on the bridge.
The news brought its fair share of cynicism from folks, some of whom posted their views on the Island Free Press and other news websites and on social media pages. If not well-founded, the cynicism is at least understandable.
It’s not easy to trust environmental groups who have inserted themselves in so many aspects of our lives with an amazing zealotry. But we do have some assurances now that certain steps can be taken without the threat of more lawsuits.
And the war against the encroaching Atlantic Ocean and sea-level rise is not over for those of us who live on these islands or who love to visit them. Establishing reliable transportation on the island will remain challenging.
However, we now have real solutions to three of our most challenging transportation problems, and work to get moving on all three is already underway. Funds for the projects are already included in the state’s 10-year Transportation Improvement Plan.
The three projects address Highway 12 problems on the southern end of Pea Island between the inlet cut by Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Rodanthe. The north end of Pea Island has been relatively stable in recent years. The north end of Buxton and the area just west of Hatteras village have been the sites of inlets in recent history are both at risk for another breach, but are not threatened to the extent of southern Pea Island.
The first and most important project is the replacement for the Bonner Bridge, which is a good 20 years past its useful life and has been patched together over the past couple decades at a cost of more than $50 million.
The contractors on the new bridge, PLC Civil Constructors and HDR Engineering, who have been sitting around waiting since the contract was awarded four years ago, were told Monday to “start moving” on the new bridge.
Obviously, it takes a while to get moving on project of this magnitude, but construction is expected to begin next spring with completion in three years.
The plaintiffs in the 2011 lawsuit to replace the bridge have agreed in the settlement not to sue over the construction of the parallel bridge.
The second important project is a more reliable temporary bridge at Pea Island Inlet.
Although the inlet there has dried up since 2011, the area is inlet-prone and the chances of another opening in a storm are good.
The bridge constructed four years ago immediately after Hurricane Irene was meant to be very temporary. It’s short, slow, and rickety. Some call it the “Lego” bridge.
It will be replaced by another bridge, which is also considered temporary, but will be more than a half mile long to take traffic over areas just north and south of the inlet that have been plagued with overwash in recent minor northeasters. The bridge will also be better supported on pile bents and will be higher — approximately 15 feet above mean high water.
The agreement provides for emergency temporary measures for repair if a future storm causes damage to the temporary bridge.
The plaintiffs have agreed not to sue over construction of the temporary bridge or measures taken to repair it as spelled out in the settlement.
The third important project is bridging the S-curves and Mirlo Beach area north of Rodanthe.
In the settlement, DOT agreed to identify its preferred alternative for the area.
Environmental studies on that area had already been completed, and there were public meetings and a public comment period in January 2014. However, DOT never identified its preferred alternative.
A merger team, composed of state and local resource and regulatory agencies, met Wednesday and identified the “jug-handle” bridge that swings out into the Pamlico Sound as the preferred alternative.
It was not exactly a surprise that the merger team chose that alternative, since the settlement agreement states that if the “jug-handle bridge” should be the choice, the environmental groups will not sue.
The preferred alternative will start its swing out into the sound north of the S-curves and rejoin Highway 12 in north Rodanthe.
Here I will digress to note that although DOT — those mainlander folks — refer to the bridge’s shape as the “jug-handle,” I am reminded by a colleague that when it was first proposed, locals call it the “fish-hook” bridge.
So these are the three most important projects that the settlement has guaranteed will now be built. They should serve the island well until there is some agreement on a fourth project — the long-term solution to the Pea Island Inlet area.
The agreement calls for the Merger Team to study the alternatives for that area, including a second bridge that would swing out into the sound somewhere north of Pea Island Inlet and meet up in the sound with the north Rodanthe “jug-handle” bridge.
If that happens, bridges will take Highway 12 traffic out over the Pamlico Sound for seven miles — which is, of course, 10.5 miles short of what the environmental groups wanted with their proposal for a long bridge bypassing all of Pea Island.
The groups did win a promise from DOT that there would be some kind of provision made in the construction of the new Bonner Bridge that would allow a “peg” or nub from which a bridge could be taken out into the sound to meet up with the southern Pea Island bridges at some point in the future.
However, Tata said the arrangement is standard practice in construction and should not be construed as a concession in the settlement or a commitment to a future expansion plan.
The issue of continued access to Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge is not addressed in the settlement, but it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Obviously, a highway through the refuge need not be maintained, but it is very important to Hatteras Island and all of Dare County — and the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative — that some kind of vehicle access in the refuge be maintained for recreation and for repair to the power poles.
So bottom line here is that we now have three real, funded projects that won’t be challenged in the courts to get us through Pea Island in the short-term.
Yes, we may have other problems on Pea Island in future storms.
Yes, getting the long-term solution at Pea Island Inlet area could be a lengthy process.
And, yes, at some point we may need a bridge at north Buxton or between Hatteras village and Frisco.
But here I will paraphrase what Beth Midgett, chairperson of the Dare County Citizens’ Committee to Replace the Bonner Bridge Now and the co-founder of the Bridge Moms group, said after Monday’s announcement.
Pardon the pun, but let’s cross those bridges when we come to them.
Click here for a Bonner Bridge replacement timeline.
RADIO INTERVIEW WITH DARE’S NEW EMERGENCY MANAGER
The guest this Sunday on my Radio Hatteras interview show, “To the Point,” will be Dare County’s new director of emergency management, Drew Pearson. In the interview, Pearson discusses emergency preparedness in general, the importance of storm surge forecasting and new Weather Service products to help with that, evacuation and re-entry issues and procedures, and more.
You can tune into Radio Hatteras at 5 p.m. on Sunday, June 21 or June 28, to listen to the interview. Turn your dial to FM 101.5 or 99.9 or listen to live streaming on your computer at www.radiohatteras.org. An audio of the interview will also be posted next week on The Island Free Press.
