Oregon Inlet jetty plan scuttled

Environmentalists apparently have won a 30-year battle with fishing and boating interests over a proposal to construct jetties at Oregon Inlet on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Four federal agencies — the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior and the Department of Commerce — said Thursday they have agreed to drop the project.

The $108 million plan had called for construction of two rock jetties extending more than a mile into the Atlantic. Advocates said the jetties would have prevented sand from clogging the only passage to the sea in the northern Outer Banks.

In addition to the initial $108 million price tag, there would have been $6.1 million in annual dredging costs, the federal agencies said.

Boaters and fishermen argued the jetties would ensure safe passage through the only inlet between Virginia and the southern tip of Hatteras Island. Environmentalists maintained the structures would cause beach erosion and damage the fisheries.

The federal agencies themselves were at odds. The Interior Department’s National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service both had joined the environmentalists in expressing erosion concerns.

Instead of building the jetties, the Corps of Engineers now says it will “improve the current 14-foot navigation channel while working with the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to enhance boating safety.” The NOAA role would consist of “providing the public with more accurate and up-to-date navigational data on changing sand conditions in the channel.”

“This was a difficult decision to reach, but ultimately it was the right decision,” said Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton.