Where were you when you heard the news that the Bonner Bridge was closing immediately for safety concerns on the afternoon of Tuesday, Dec. 3?
Hope you were not up the beach at a doctor?s appointment, taking care of other business, or Christmas shopping. Because some who were had a big hassle getting back to Hatteras or spent the night on the ?other side,? as we call it.
We all knew it would happen sooner or later ? especially with the continuous legal challenges by environmental groups to DOT?s plan to replace the decrepit bridge.
But how did we imagine it would happen? I was taken by surprise by the sudden announcement that the bridge would close immediately. I am not sure why, since the bridge is 20 or more years past the date that the engineers who designed it thought it would be in service.
However, I take the North Carolina Department of Transportation at its word when officials say the most recent scouring problem with pilings progressed at warp speed between the Friday after Thanksgiving and last Tuesday.
Of course, when DOT Secretary Tony Tata got the report from engineers on Tuesday morning after Thanksgiving weekend that the bridge was now unsafe, he had no choice but to close it.
In the wake of that closure, the Hatteras and Ocracoke communities are struggling with the transportation corridor off the island. We?re down to ferries again.
No matter how you spin it, the closure is a shock that has the potential to turn your life upside down if you work on the other side, are undergoing medical treatments, or have other regular business with our northern neighbors.
According to the DOT Board representative for our islands, Malcolm Fearing, the Ferry Division is spending $35,000 a day on emergency ferries that can move only 968 single cars a day off and on the island. That is 484 vehicles from each side.
And that?s not many ? even for the off season. Fewer than 500 cars can leave or enter Hatteras on the Emergency Route each day. And that number is reduced by every tractor-trailer, camper, bus, truck, or vehicle towing a boat.
More access is available by mainland ferries to Ocracoke and then the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry, but that is very time consuming.
Tuesday night, Dare County and DOT officials had a community meeting in Buxton to answer questions and address issues about the bridge closure situation.
Most of the questions and the issues had to do with priority on the emergency ferries and how we deal with the Highway 12 transportation corridor going forward.
Furthermore, the debate about long bridge vs. short bridge is still simmering in the community, though no one directly spoke about it Tuesday night.
SETTING PRIORITIES
Some folks want to see all residents have priority on the ferries.
There is just no way with fewer than 500 vehicles able to get on or off the island every day that will work.
Think about it.
This will only work if we want to give up regular deliveries of bread, milk, and beer and such amenities as fuel and mail and package delivery.
Dare County officials are trying to work with everyone, monitor the ferry lines, and make changes as necessary.
Ferries, no matter what the Southern Environmental Law Center says, will just never be able to transport all of the residents, visitors, and supply trucks that we need.
SELC seems incapable of giving up the idea, even though the most recent studies show that high speed ferries are not only cost prohibitive but also cannot operate in our shallow sound waters.
As one official noted in a community meeting earlier this week, there aren?t enough ferries in the state of North Carolina to move all of the cars, vehicles, and trucks that come over the Bonner Bridge every day in the tourist season.
CONTINUING CONTROVERSY
The decision to close the Bonner Bridge for safety reasons has reignited the debate about the long bridge vs. short bridge options.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which represents Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association in their effort to stop the DOT from building a shorter bridge parallel to the current span, has stepped up its efforts to put out misinformation ? the most polite way to describe it — about the decision-making process a decade ago.
The governor, the Secretary of Transportation, and other officials, have urged the public to appeal to SELC to drop the lawsuit. Some folks seem to be offended by that effort, but I can?t see why.
SELC has refused and even stepped up the rhetoric.
In a letter to the governor and the secretary, SELC senior attorney Derb Carter whines about ?irresponsible political attacks? and the fact that the law center has apparent been at the receiving end of ?multiple threats based on misinformation.?
We don?t condone threats, and we can?t say that neither the governor nor secretary has misspoke at one time or another.
However, we can say that SELC has continued to mislead the public about what happened a decade ago and to ignore the decision of federal Judge Louise Flanagan, who ruled in favor of DOT. SELC has already filed its appeal in the case and is also challenging a major CAMA permit for the project in state Superior Court.
It is true that the long 17-mile bridge was studied by the state and federal team tasked with a plan to replace the bridge.
It was studied mostly because SELC kept insisting that the state could not get permits to build the replacement in the right-of-way through Pea Island because that would not be ?compatible? with the refuge?s mission.
In his letter to the governor, Carter says, ?Under their leadership (the merger team), all state and federal agencies reached a regulatory agreement in 2003 that a longer bridge crossing Oregon Inlet and bypassing the eroding areas and future inlets on Pea Island was the best alternative.?
This is just flat out not true.
In mid-2003, the merger team agreed to study the long-bridge alternative and to do some environmental studies.
It never came close to a recommendation, regulatory agreement, or anything else.
In fact, as more became known about the cost of the bridge and as more questions were raised about its environmental consequences, safety concerns, and the future of public access to Pea Island ? which would have been little or none ? the long bridge idea was quickly dropped.
The Secretary of Interior at the time, Dirk Kempthorne, came to Pea Island, visited the area where the short bridge would land, toured the refuge, and went back to Washington to announce that the project was compatible with the mission of the refuge.
I recommend the guest column published earlier this week and written by Jim Trogdon, former DOT chief operating officer, noting many of the errors of fact in responses by SELC to the bridge closure.
Many folks believe the decision to build the short bridge was politically motivated.
Maybe it was in part. So what? Some people who make these decisions are politicians, and SELC certainly was playing its own political game.
However, you can be sure that the record shows that there were plenty of good reasons that the long-bridge was dropped from consideration. Among them are environmental concerns, which SELC conveniently ignores.
There remains some conflict among residents, those most affected by these decisions, about this issue.
On one hand, a petition is circulating urging folks to sign on and insist that SELC and its clients drop the lawsuit.
And also circulating on the social media and Internet last week was a letter to the governor and others, urging islanders to ?join the SELC and build a RAISED CAUSEWAY (bridge) through the NC waters of the Pamlico Sound to Rodanthe, thus bypassing the lunatic extremist ?bird people.??
The ?join with SELC letter? doesn?t seem to have gotten much traction and everyone is entitled to an opinion, but residents should remember that SELC would like nothing better than to divide and conquer the community on this issue.
What happened 10 years ago is history. It?s time we leave it in the past and move forward.