BCA grapples with finding a faster solution after petroleum smells and debris resurface at Buxton Beach
The mood at the monthly Buxton Civic Association (BCA) meeting on September 4 was grim, as board members and roughly 20 attendees grappled with a new wave of petroleum smells and debris that have resurfaced at the closed Buxton Beach shoreline.
On Tuesday, after strong but not unusual northeast winds, the shoreline of the former 1956-2010 military site had eroded once again, with multiple reports of petroleum smells that coincided with high tide cycles.
By Thursday morning, after several days of worsening conditions, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore was forced to expand the .3-mile closure to .55 miles, extending the off-limit shoreline to include the popular Old Lighthouse Beach Access.
While the BCA touched on future solutions for controlling erosion along the Buxton shoreline – such as installing Geotubes based on a recent Bald Head Island project – board members agreed that, for the time being, examining long-term beach protection measures was putting the cart before the horse.
“We literally can’t move forward with any next steps until we get the beach cleaned up,” said board member Jeff Dawson.
On Tuesday, (a day before the BCA met), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District Commander Col. Ron Sturgeon gave an update on the Corps’ ongoing efforts at the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site at the monthly Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting.
Because the roughly 50-acre Buxton Beach site is part of the Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) program, the Corps is responsible for addressing contaminants related to Naval activity from 1956-1982, which includes the sporadic but nauseating petroleum smells. (The U.S. Coast Guard is responsible for other potential contaminants from their use of the site from 1985-2010.)
However, one year after these issues came to the surface after two 2023 hurricanes brushed the Outer Banks, BCA members were frustrated at how little had been accomplished, as well as the lack of new information – or new action – reported by the Corps at Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners meeting.
“They [the Corps] are tied up in red tape. You can tell,” said Dawson. “Probably the most exciting thing I took from yesterday is that this is the first time that the Dare County Commissioner Board has stood up for Hatteras Island. Every one of them, individually and collectively, had something to say. I thought that was amazing. I’ve never seen that, and I just don’t know how to express what a huge triumph that was”
“But with that being said, as we concluded yesterday, the talk was how to get this away from the Amry Corps of Engineers,” said board member Brian Harris. “Obviously, they cannot do their job. They haven’t done their job in 25 years, what makes us think we’re going to get them to do it quickly, now?”
The BCA mulled over several options, which may be considered or explored at once, in order to foster some sort of faster action.
One option was getting a State of Emergency declared on a state level, and/or contacting state representatives – including the Governor’s Office – to generate funds and assistance. Another option was shifting the focus from the Corps to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in case a different but related federal agency could step in and facilitate the shoreline’s remediation.
The most probable solution, however, appeared to be to get a literal act of Congress, which could provide funds to remediate Buxton Beach and force action on the issue.
Harris noted that county conversations with legislators were ongoing, in the hopes of getting money earmarked for Dare County and the National Park Service to take over the problems, and speed along a solution.
“It’s obvious the Army Corps of Engineers is completely in over their heads, so we’re trying to somewhat remove them,” said Harris.
Board member Wendi Munden explained that the BCA had also created a revised and prioritized email list for community members who wanted to help by contacting the stakeholders involved, and that state and federal legislators were now at the top of the hierarchy.
“The top of our list right now is going to be the House, the Senate, and the Governor, because that’s where we need to go,” said Munden. “There is not an agency that’s going to come in here and clean it up. A bill needs to be signed in Washington that says, ‘clean it up.’”
On a slightly brighter note, the BCA announced that they would be attending two upcoming conferences to explore the issue further – the Water Summit in October and the North Carolina Beach, Inlet, and Waterway Association Conference in November. BCA Members are also continuing to work with the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) towards both the Buxton Beach closure, and a possible $350,000 grant to solidify and protect nearby roads in Buxton from continual ocean flooding.
But the primary theme at the BCA meeting was to keep the outcry and outreach to decision-makers going, and to keep the problem in the public eye, especially in light of the resurfaced mess of debris along the beach.
“If I saw somebody pouring diesel off a boat, I would think that that’s wrong, right? I feel like we all would think that. And right now, we are pouring diesel off of the beach, which is the exact same thing,” said Munden. “There has to be a loophole around this. There has to be some way. If something like this was happening in any other National Seashore or state park or federal park, there would be a process that they would follow to fix it.”
