Editor’s Forum

Dave Clark must be a pretty patient man.

For months, the Nags Head public works director has been trying to get a simple thing done: cleaning a ditch. But the work might have to wait for an environmental assessment, or worse, a full-blown environmental impact statement.

“So it could take years?” town Commissioner Anna Sadler asked Clark at a Board of Commissioners meeting last month.

“It could,” Clark replied.

The town is ready to clean out the ditch near its new fire station in South Nags Head to help get storm water moving. But it leads to a larger one on National Park Service land that has to be cleaned out too. Clark reported to the commissioners last week that he hasn’t had any luck opening doors for discussion about a way the job could be done without a study.

So the ditch cleaning remains in bureaucratic limbo, which is not surprising on the Outer Banks, where getting the go-ahead to do anything sometimes seems eternal.

“You’re gonna need a permit” is often used as a punch line, but for practically everything on the Outer Banks, you’re gonna need a permit — probably several. And because waterways and wetlands abound, and private, local, county, state and federal properties frequently converge, that often means dealing with a host of government entities and endless study.

Just last week, Nags Head Town Manager Cliff Ogburn recapped a meeting in Washington, N.C., on a state permit that the town needs to start pumping sand onto its beaches. While most of the loose ends seem to be resolved, Ogburn reported that there were 21 people in the room. All were representing various interests, including one agency each for sea turtles and bethnic organisms, the shoreline creatures at the lower end of the food chain that keep fish fed.

Probably the biggest permitting entity is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Nags Head is trying to get the county and neighboring towns to agree to free up money from a beach nourishment fund for its 10-mile project. But unless the corps waves a rule protecting fisheries and allows work in the spring, summer and fall, Mayor Bob Oakes says, the project is probably dead. It is too dangerous and inefficient during the winter.

Without a doubt, the ecosphere needs protection, especially on the Outer Banks, where nature is a big part of its appeal. But lately, it seems, the rules have been especially onerous. And there are some who believe that environmental groups leverage the rules to minimize compromise and infinitely delay projects.

The Herbert C. Bonner Bridge replacement hit the radar almost 20 years ago and is still being studied. Easily more than a dozen state and federal agencies have weighed in. The delays have so frustrated local leaders that state Senate President Marc Basnight, D-Dare, wrote a plea for intervention to the president late last month. It included a scenario of a busload of school children plunging from the bridge as it collapsed into Oregon Inlet.

Even Nags Head has been known for hard-headedness about the rules. One states that you need authorization to cut down a tree more than 5 inches in diameter. Clear-cutting is one thing, but there doesn’t appear to be a shortage of trees in town.

This column also appeared Sunday in the North Carolina section of The Virginian-Pilot.

 

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