Community discusses next steps for Buxton Beach at public meeting

With response by three major federal entities hindered by a jurisdictional tangle at Buxton Beach, it seems like ‘we the people’ have to exert their citizen power to get attention in Washington to clean up the debris and pollutants left behind at the former Navy site.

Liz Rasheed, senior associate attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center, told community members at a meeting of the Buxton Civic Association on Monday that lawyers like herself and even local politicians do not make the same impact on Congressional offices as communication from residents and other concerned citizens.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) program is responsible for cleaning up petroleum spills at the site, and the Coast Guard, which operated a base there from 1984 until 2010, is responsible for cleaning up toxic chemical spills at the site. But the source of newly exposed petroleum remnants has not yet been located, and the Corps says it is not responsible for cleaning up the debris.

Rasheed said there have been letters sent — in April from the law center and the North Carolina Coastal Federation to the Corps, and in June from numerous local organizations and nonprofits to a Congressional subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Corps — as well as a recent follow-up discussion with committee staff.

“But they need to hear from you,” Rasheed said, “and that will help to sort of get the momentum behind this, to get their staff moving, looking at issues of, ‘Okay, we want this to happen quickly.’”

Feedback provided from the committee staff, she added, was that they were not hearing from the Outer Banks’ congressional members about the issue. Since then, U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, R-3rd District, has visited Buxton, and staff from U.S. Sen Thom Tillis, R-NC, are visiting Dare County this week.

Rasheed said the law center is trying to help the parties resolve the problem and nudge the Corps to take more responsibility for removing the debris, which the Corps has said it does not have the authority to do because the building remains were not hazardous when the Navy abandoned the site. But there have been no lawsuits filed.

“As far as legal arguments go, we are happy to jump in and provide support there why that’s not the case and they should be able to clean those up,” she told the audience at the Fessenden Center. “But in order for us to play a role there, there needs to be momentum behind it, of congresspeople wanting to help fix this issue, and it needs to come from communications with you all on the ground.”

Heather Jennette, a board member, said that the civic association will update its email list and contacts, and reminded the community that since it’s an election year, all elected officials will be more inclined to be responsive.

Sitting in the front row, State Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, also encouraged people to write their state representatives as well as the federal officials. He agreed with others who said it was more effective to write about concerns in your own words, rather than copying and pasting a form letter.

“You’ve got to write them,” urged Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard, who was sitting next to Hanig. “We’ll be keeping the pressure on.”

The long-buried chunks of concrete and oily pipes that first emerged last year on a small section of beach near Old Lighthouse Road have now been temporarily reburied, but everyone expects that it will be fully uncovered before the winter — or sooner.

Potential tropical cyclone five is very likely to come up the East Coast, but it looks like it’s going to stay quite a ways off the coast,” Dave Hallac, superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore said during a presentation. But in addition to the expected high surf, he said, the alignment of the sun and moon will create king tide — extreme high and low tides – between about Aug. 16 through Aug. 22.

“So don’t be surprised if the Buxton site erodes again,” Hallac said.

In a brief refresher of the situation, he recounted how it began last fall and into the winter when a series of storms unburied the debris and apparently released petroleum remnants that created a strong diesel odor and a sheen on the ocean. As a result, the Park Service in September closed a 3/10th-mile section of beach and the Dare County Department of Health and Human Service issued a precautionary public health advisory – both of which are still in effect.

“Erosion is not the cause of this problem,” Hallac said. “But erosion has exposed this problem.”

When the Park Service permitted the Navy’s top secret submarine base from 1956 to 1982 at the site – then adjacent to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was moved in 1999 — it was much further away from the surf, he said. The lighthouse was 1,500 feet from the ocean when it was built in 1870; by 1919, it was only 300 feet away.

“So this has always been a rapidly eroding area,” he said. And since the erosion is vertical, carving chunks out of the shoreline from top to bottom, it appears that old petroleum-contaminated soil and possibly some petroleum distribution pipes were freed from the sand that had encapsulated the base remains for decades.

“This is not a Hollywood oil spill,” Hallac said. “There is not oil free flowing out.”

The Corps has removed a pipe to test it, and is expected to discuss the results at a meeting on Sept. 3 during a Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting

The Coast Guard is also expected to have a report on its test bores in the fall, Hallac said. Then when the pollution is dealt with, he said he expects to be able to work out a plan with the parties for the debris removal.

“Our number one goal is to know what contamination is out there,” he said.

“So we are making progress with a situation,” he said. “It has been slow. I don’t think it’s that the agencies don’t care. It’s because they have processes to go through, and they have a lot of other formally used defense sites to manage.

“And so I think this one is rather unique, given that it’s washing away, whereas many other sites might be inland and maybe not have the same sense of urgency that we’re experiencing.”

As the Buxton Civic Association concluded its meeting, Jennette asked people in the audience what they wanted to happen with Buxton Beach.

“We want to see it cleaned up,” responded resident Dale Bendula, who lives near the site. “Get it done already . . . it’s dangerous and it’s been dangerous for 10 years.”