Representatives of local and state agencies took a tour of problematic sites on Hatteras Island’s shorelines on Thursday as part of the two-day N.C. Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) meeting, held on the Outer Banks
Roughly 30 meeting attendees were guided through the history of northern Buxton and Rodanthe, with a spotlight on recent erosion-driven issues and the possible solutions that are being considered.
Members of the Buxton Civic Association (BCA) joined the group at Old Lighthouse Beach in Buxton, where National Parks of Eastern North Carolina Superintendent David Hallac explained the significance of the site. Hallac was invited by the CRC to lead the tour, as he had given several similar presentations to the Commission in the past year.
“I call Buxton the heart of the National Seashore because this is geographically the tip of Cape Hatteras, and behind you is the tallest lighthouse in the United States,” said Hallac. “So this is an iconic place that is special to all Americans.”
While Old Lighthouse Beach looked pristine on the sunny Thursday afternoon tour, remnants of recent problems and current challenges remained on the shoreline.
A small section of beach is still closed to the public at the end of Old Lighthouse Road due to buried petroleum from a former military base that was revealed after two offshore hurricanes in September 2023. Although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers conducted an impressive remediation project at the end of 2024, reopening the adjacent Old Lighthouse Beach, studies are ongoing to identify any petroleum-contaminated soils that may remain on the shoreline.
The other noticeable chink in the landscape is the remnants of the Buxton jetties, although solutions are aggressively being pursued to repair these structures in the near future.
The Buxton jetties were built by the Navy in the late 1960s, but maintenance of the jetties ceased after the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet inland in 1999.
As BCA Board Member and professional surfer Brett Barley explained, leaving the jetties to deteriorate resulted in accelerated erosion in the immediate area.
“Up until 2021, this jetty was whole, all the way to where you see the last piece sticking out [in the ocean],” said Barley. “But the steel has been degrading at a rapid rate, and the whole stretch is reaching a point where it’s all falling apart.”
As massive holes form in the jetties just under the water’s surface, ocean currents power through the new gaps, accelerating erosion in northern Buxton.
Spencer Rogers, Co-Vice Chair of the N.C. Coastal Resources Advisory Council and a 40-year coastal erosion and construction specialist for North Carolina Sea Grant, agreed that intact jetties helped protect the neighboring shoreline.
“Well, the jetties are the primary reason why the old Lighthouse site in Buxton and N.C. Highway 12 is probably still here,” said Rogers. “If the jetties didn’t exist, they would have washed away years ago.”
“We have our water and we have our electricity in Buxton, and they aren’t going to survive if they’re in the ocean,” said island native and Lighthouse View Motel owner John Hooper. “We need to do something about protecting the beach.”
There is good news on two fronts when it comes to expanding the Buxton shoreline and protecting it from further erosion, however, which was also explained on the Buxton tour.
In 2026, a maintenance beach nourishment project is planned for Buxton, which will add two million cubic yards of sand to approximately 2.9 miles of northern Buxton shoreline.
A new effort has also been launched to repair the three Buxton jetties, and hopefully before the beach nourishment project is in full swing, so that the widened shoreline can be better protected.
For decades, it has been the policy of North Carolina, as outlined in the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA), to ban hardened structures along the state’s shorelines, including jetties (or groins), but there have been some adjustments or variances to these rules. For example, exceptions have been made to protect historic and immovable structures or important waterways needed for navigation.
Also, under the current law, if there is an existing grandfathered-in jetty or other hardened structure, and 50% or more of it still exists, it can be repaired. If there’s less than 50% of the original structure remaining, it’s considered a total rebuild or replacement, which is not allowed.
Previous studies found that less than 50% of the Buxton jetties remained, and as a result, they could not be repaired under the existing law.
But at the March Board of Commissioners (BOC) meeting, County Manager Bobby Outten announced that Coastal Science & Engineering (CSE) – the same organization that performs the county’s beach nourishment projects – found a way to push the jetties past that 50% threshold.
Essentially, when conducting a study of what percentage of the jetties remained, CSE was asked to include the portion of the jetties that were underwater or buried in the sand in their estimations.
“There’s more groin under the sand that you can’t see, and it’s much more than what you can see above the sand, which is why we’re confident we will meet the 50% rule,” said Outten.
Once the data has been collected, permits and permission will be needed from the Coastal Resources Commission, the National Park Service, and possibly the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. However, the parties involved are optimistic that this permission to move forward will be granted, and quickly.
“They recognize that pressure that we’re under, and we told them that we want to do this work at the same time [as the 2026 nourishment project] while everybody’s mobilized, but it just takes time,” said Outten. “It usually takes two to three years to go through that process, and we’re trying to do it in less than a year.”
“I think it’s going to come down to what’s there now, and what the county strategy is,” said Tancred Miller, who is the Director of the N.C. Division of Coastal Management and is one of the decision makers when it comes to permitting the jetty repairs under the 50% rule. “But we are going to do everything we can to help make this possible.”
