3609 Hwy 24 (Ocean) | Newport, North Carolina 28570

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 2, 2004

Jan DeBlieu, Cape Hatteras COASTKEEPER^®
252-473-1607 or 252-480-5361
hatteraskeeper-cf@nccoast.org

DOT Cited for 'Kicking' Illegal Ferry Channel

     MANTEO, NC – State environmental regulators have cited the NC Department of Transportation for cutting an illegal channel in Currituck Sound at the planned landing site for a DOT pedestrian ferry that is slated to carry passengers from the Outer Banks to the mainland.
   Acting on a tip from Jan DeBlieu, the NC Coastal Federation's Cape Hatteras COASTKEEPER^®, and an anonymous caller, the US.Army Corps of Engineers in Washington, NC, launched an investigation into the channel, which was reportedly cut in front of the Whalehead Club by the propeller of DOT workboat. Such a procedure is commonly called "kicking."
    After DeBlieu phoned in her tip, the Corps alerted officials in the Elizabeth City office of the state Division of Coastal Management (DCM). A few days later, a division investigator flew over the site and took pictures showing a clear turning basin and channel leading from docks at the ferry landing into the deeper waters of the sound.
    "It's not the kind of thing that could have been cut by accident," DeBlieu said. "It's deep and wide and straight."
    DOT officials had applied for a state permit to dredge a channel at the site. The permit was not issued because of concerns that it would destroy sensitive shallow water habitat. State and federal regulations also prohibit dredging during the summer because of potential impacts on seagrass beds, fisheries, and threatened loggerhead turtles.
    The harbor outside the Whalehead Club has always had a channel, but it is normally too shallow to accommodate the pontoon ferry that DOT had planned to begin using this month. Soundings taken by Corps and DCM investigators show its current depth to be between five and six feet. The aerial photos also show sediment piled along the edges of the channel, indicating that it was recently cut.
    The Notice of Violation, issued by DCM officials Monday, cites DOT for unauthorized major development without a Coastal Area Management Act permit and violations of the state dredge and fill law. State scientists are trying to decide whether DOT should be required to restore the damaged bottom.
    According to DCM officials and witnesses, a large DOT workboat was in the harbor in early April replacing the plastic pipes that marked the traditional channel. When the boat became stuck in the shallow waters, it forced its way out with its prop. One witness told of watching the boat run into shallow water several times, then kick its way out.
    Federal regulators are conducting a separate investigation and expect to issue a Notice of Violation soon. DeBlieu asks anyone who may have witnessed the dredging to contact her at 252-473-1607 or Corps investigators in Washington at 252-975-1616. "I wouldn't have known about this if someone from the area hadn't called me," she said.
    DeBlieu said she was stunned by the act. "I don't know how the operator of that boat possibly thought he could get away with it," she said. Two months ago, she noted, Balfour-Beatty Inc., a contractor on the new bridge built between Manteo and Manns Harbor in Dare County, was fined $700,000 in combined civil and criminal penalties for a similar violation. "The feds and the state take this kind of thing very, very seriously," she said.