Bridge help sought from congressional delegation

State lawmakers have moved from the president to the state’s congressional delegation in a letter-writing campaign pressing for action on the stalled Bonner Bridge replacement.

Meanwhile, an environmental group contends that a 17-mile-long alternative probably could have been built by now.

In a letter following up one sent to the president late last month, state Senate President Marc Basnight and state Rep. Tim Spear urged members of the state’s congressional delegation to intervene to get the project moving.

“As our state’s federal representatives, you have a responsibility to speak out as well — and your opinion carries more weight,” the Democrats wrote.

The letter asks the delegation to contact the interior and transportation secretaries and “urge them to accept the design cleared by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers and allow construction to begin as soon as possible.”

“The Congress and federal officials are responsible for creating this complex and repetitive maze of bureaucracy. And it is the Congress and the federal government that must remove this barrier — the last obstacle to replacing this vital lifeline to Hatteras Island that continues to deteriorate more with every passing day,” they wrote.

The letter went to the state’s two U.S. senators and its 13 U.S. representatives, with a copy to Gov. Bev Perdue.

Under consideration is a bridge parallel to the existing 2.4-mile span, with later maintenance and improvements to N.C. 12.

Shortly after Basnight asked the president for help, the Southern Environmental Law Center wrote its own letter saying that a 17-mile alternative bypassing Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge might have been built by now if Basnight had not intervened.

Signed by Derb Carter, the director, and Julia F. Youngman, a senior attorney, the letter said that federal and state agencies had signed off on the longer bridge in 2003 but Basnight objected and asked the governor to allow more time to study alternatives.

It contended that Basnight was concerned that it would take funding away from the mid-Currituck Bridge. The long bridge would have cost abut $260 million, the SELC said. Estimates for the parallel bridge are now over $1 billion.

“The Pamlico Bridge alternative would provide the same ‘personal and economic lifeline’ that Senator Basnight seeks,” the letter said.

The longer bridge has never been popular locally. The concern is that it would restrict or eliminate access to the refuge and that N.C. 12, unmaintained, would eventually deteriorate beyond use.

“The SELC letter conveniently ignores a lot of the facts and selectively omits actual decisions made in 2006 and 2007 about the bridge design least damaging to the environment,” Schorr Johnson, a spokesman for Basnight, said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Johnson said that in 2007, an interagency group concurred that the parallel bridge was the least environmentally damaging and practicable. Concurring, he wrote, were the NCDOT, the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In 2006, he said, the U.S. Department of the Interior advocated what has also been called the phased approach, and then-Gov. Mike Easley, the local congressional delegation and Basnight endorsed it as well.

Final approval for the parallel version seemed imminent until the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced earlier this year that another study would be required. It would examine the consequences of going ahead with the parallel bridge, then putting up smaller bridges or using beach nourishment, among other things, to protect N.C. 12 as needed.

The SELC objected to that plan, saying it left too much to chance and posed greater risks to the environment.

Discussion of a new bridge over Oregon Inlet began almost 20 years ago. A draft environmental impact statement was issued in 1993.

Related:

Basnight sends Bonner Bridge plea to the president »

 

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