Co-published with Coastalreview.org As a charter vessel approaches the South Ferry Channel, what appears to be the shadowy head of a cobra rising from an undulating body waits on the west side of the channel entrance, as if ready to strike. Countless other visual imaginings are no doubt possible from the stunning birds-eye view of Hatteras […]

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As sea levels continue to rise, the most imperiled spot on North Carolina’s vulnerable Outer Banks is likely on Ocracoke Island, where an erosion hot spot threatening its sole highway is past due for a long-term transportation solution, including potentially bypassing the north end of the island. “I’d say on N.C. 12, this is probably […]

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After numerous complications with dredging the South Ferry Channel, the Army Corps of Engineers reported to the Dare County Waterways Commission at its Monday meeting that the hopper dredge Murden has finally started work removing the problem shoal. “They’re working daylight operations only,” U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Chief of Floating Plant Joen Petersen told […]

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If the ferries can’t run to and from this southernmost Outer Banks island, the community is isolated, and its tourism economy crashes. It’s a threat that has become all too real. Related: Alternate Ferry Schedule Extended to April 12 Since about mid-March, persistent shoaling in the Bigfoot Slough channel off Silver Lake Harbor has resulted […]

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Dredging in the now-impassable South Ferry Channel in Hatteras Inlet has been making far less progress than expected, leaving members of the Dare County Waterways Commission at Monday’s virtual meeting reacting in stunned silence after a project update. “I wish I had good news to tell you that we busted through the shoal,” U.S. Army […]

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As Oregon Inlet continues to thwart nearly every effort to tame it, North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, is lending his voice to reviving pursuit of twin jetties to prevent sand clogging the inlet’s navigation channel. “What we need to do is we need have the jetties built,” Murphy said at a […]

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Details about a comprehensive proposal laying out numerous options for disposal of dredge material occupied much of Wednesday’s meeting of the Dare County Waterways Commission, indicating that finding somewhere to put excess sand may be as challenging as finding ways to keep it from washing away. In a lengthy slide presentation on the proposed Dare […]

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From beach nourishment to channel dredging to erosion control to material disposal to shoreline preservation, sand management in coastal North Carolina communities is no longer a sporadic chore. It is an engineering challenge, a ballooning expense, a bureaucratic headache, an evolving menace. With rapidly changing coastal dynamics, it is also a necessity and, increasingly, a […]

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Ever since Hurricane Sandy and other 2012 storms reconfigured channels in Hatteras Inlet into lumpy and pinched navigational challenges, members of the Dare County Waterways Commission have spent many a meeting figuratively screaming into the abyss. Securing funds and permits for dredging projects to clear the worsening shoaling had become the bureaucratic version of bumping […]

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