Speakers urge action on bridge replacement
Bruce Matthews of Surf or Sound Realty spoke at Tuesday's hearing. (Voice photo)
But that prospect is still very much up in the air.
Tuesday’s hearing and another in Buxton Thursday are part of the latest environmental assessment on the project, but the study could lead to another year of paperwork.
Even though a final environmental impact statement was completed two years ago, the environmental assessment was required to address changes in the plan that the North Carolina Department of Transportation says it prefers.
The preferred plan calls for a new bridge parallel to the existing one to be built first and for problems along N.C. 12 south to Rodanthe to be addressed later.
Speakers Tuesday, many of them local elected officials, reiterated their exasperation with the time it has taken to plan and study replacing the old bridge over Oregon Inlet.
“Let’s get on with it,” Kill Devil Hills Mayor Ray Sturza said.
Ken Sharp Jr. of Manteo called for environmental groups and public officials to negotiate and find a middle ground.
“I, for one, don’t want to be on that bridge when it falls in,” he said. “Just build me a bridge, please.”
Public safety was the issue for Sheriff Rodney Midgett. Warren Judge, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, said commerce was at risk, with Hatteras Island providing 25 percent of the trade and property taxes in the county.
Several speakers pointed to a structural integrity rating of 2 out of 100 for the existing bridge by the Federal Highway Administration. Others noted that the Bonner Bridge was built in 1963 and was given a life expectancy of 30 years. Planning and studying the replacement has gone on for 17 years.
“We just are stunned by the thought that you want to study it again,” said Dare County Commissioner Allen Burrus.
About 50 people attended the hearing at the Dare County Administration Building and 13 spoke. It was preceded by an information session.
Since the final environmental impact statement was issued, the landing point on the south end of the bridge has been moved slightly to the west so that the existing bridge can be used during construction. Changes were also made in Rodanthe to protect a historic area and the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station.
The changes meant the state needed to do an environmental assessment.
Drew Joyner, who moderated the hearing for the department of transportation, said that after the public comment period ends Aug. 9, state and federal officials will decide if the changes had significant enough effects to warrant a supplemental final environmental impact statement.
That would probably take another year, said Joyner, who heads the Human Environment Unit with the Project Development & Environmental Analysis Branch. The record of decision would be next, and after that a contract for final design and construction would be awarded within six months, he said.
After a parallel bridge is built, according to the plan, NCDOT will begin a coastal monitoring program between Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe that will help the agency decide what to do with N.C. 12.
Several possibilities are still on the table. They include protecting the road with beach nourishment, building a low bridge the entire length to raise the road above hotspots prone to erosion and overwash, looping a bridge over the sound to bypass the S-curves north of Rodanthe or building a bridge at the S-curves. The area is notorious for washouts that shut down N.C. 12 after northeasters and tropical systems.
Estimates for building the bridge range from $216 million to $315 million. The state has $300 million on hand for the project, Joyner said.
Over the 50-year life span of the project, work on N.C. 12 and maintenance could bring the total as high as $1.5 billion.
The 17-mile-long alternative favored by environmental groups has been eliminated. That would have bypassed Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and would have cost $1.3 billion to $1.8 billion, which is not available. Access to the refuge would also be limited to one point.
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