THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 20, 1995 TAG: 9502200060
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WINSTON-SALEM LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn't have a dime to build the long-debated jetties at Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks, the corps' district chief said.
James T. Jarrett, the chief of coastal engineering at the district office in Wilmington, said the corps would have to include construction and maintenance costs in future budgets submitted to Congress.
Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., a first-term Republican who represents most of the North Carolina coast, recently introduced a bill to remove major obstacles in the path of the long-debated jetties at Oregon Inlet.
It would give the Corps of Engineers all the public land it needs to build the jetties, and it would exempt the project from federal permits.
But his proposed Oregon Inlet Protection Act doesn't deal with the major roadblock: money.
In fact, the bill eventually would require congressmen to spend as much as $430 million to help a few hundred fishermen catch fish, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
The corps estimates that it would need $88 million to build the two 1-mile-long jetties to stabilize the often treacherous inlet between Bodie and Pea islands in Dare County. To maintain the rock jetties and move sand to protect miles of popular public beaches would require $7 million a year throughout the project's 50-year ``life span.''
When he introduced the bill two weeks ago, Jones implied that the corps has the money. ``Enactment of the bill will be uncomplicated since it allows the use of already authorized funds,'' he said.
But that isn't so, Jarrett said last week: He has no money to build the jetties. Congress authorized about $10 million for that purpose in the mid-1970s, he said, but it was returned after the Interior Department objected to the project.
If Congress goes along with Jones' proposal, about 330 commercial and recreational fishing boats would be the primary beneficiaries, according to the corps' cost-benefit analysis. A stabilized Oregon Inlet would provide them safe access to offshore fishing grounds, where they could double their catch.
Corps officials acknowledge that most of the commercially important species of fish are severely depleted now, but they hope conservation plans that limit fishing will increase fish stocks by the time the jetties are built.
Jones' father, the late Walter B. Jones, introduced the original bill to authorize the jetties in 1970. Since then, the proposed jetties have been extolled as the saviors of the commercial fishing fleet and cursed as environmental disasters and a waste of taxpayers' money.
The new bill goes beyond past efforts by exempting the jetties from the U.S. Interior Department's permitting process.
Jones' bill would get around the department's reluctance to support the jetties by transferring 65 acres in the national seashore and 35 acres in the wildlife refuge to the corps, said Glen Downs, Jones' chief of staff. The bill would allow the corps to take additional land if 100 acres isn't enough.
``This basically just strips the land from Department of Interior,'' he said. ``It turns over the keys to the corps and lets them take it for a drive.''
U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a Republican, has introduced similar bills in the past without success and is expected to submit a companion to Jones' bill in the Senate.
But Orrin H. Pilkey Jr., a coastal geologist at Duke University and one of the jetties' fiercest opponents, says the bill could remove any authority that the department has to ensure that the jetties don't damage the beaches.
``It's a way of getting around the valid scientific criticism,'' Pilkey said. ``There would be people out there who are incompetent in charge of the project.''
So far, Interior's response has been more subdued. Department officials haven't seen Jones' bill, said Bob Walker, a spokesman for the Interior Department. They have been discussing the project with Hunt in the hopes of resolving some of the issues, he said.
KEYWORDS: U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS EROSION DREDGING JETTY by CNB