One day about two years ago, a shoebox wrapped in plastic arrived at the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. Inside, there was a manual, written in German and stained orange by diesel fuel. Chillingly, it included maps of the North Carolina coast, marked with the locations of lighthouses. With $4.2 million provided in this year’s […]
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Federal funds set for northeast NC smaller dredge projects
March 23, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
This is the second in a special reporting series on federal infrastructure spending and North Carolina’s navigation needs. Lacking high-volume marine traffic or large ports, North Carolina’s northeast coast typically qualifies for far less federal funding to help maintain navigational channels and inlets than do the state’s southern coastal communities. But mariners in Dare and […]
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Frustrations mount over imperiled Outer Banks houses
March 9, 2022 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review | 5
It was a warm and breezy late winter afternoon, a perfect day for a stroll along the ocean. As seabirds dove for dinner just offshore, Hope Lineman and her family were working their way north, weaving between a stretch of large houses on the beach off Ocean Drive. But they weren’t there to watch the […]
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Hatteras Inlet shoaling hindering Coast Guard & charter boats, per Dare County Waterways Commission meeting
With three nasty winter storms in a row recently, it didn’t take long for the newly dredged area in South Ferry Channel to go from smooth sailing to impassable. “It’s been really frustrating because it seems like this is the third consecutive winter I’ve had to abandon running charters in Hatteras because of shoaling in […]
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Recent Dredging of Hatteras Inlet’s South Ferry Channel Successful; Additional Dredging Planned in January
December 16, 2021 | Fishing | By: Catherine Kozak
Members of the Dare County Waterways Commission have reason to celebrate this holiday season, with reports from fishermen and charter boat captains that the recent dredging of the South Ferry Channel is holding up nicely. “They say the flow going east-west through there — it’s a much better flow than what we had going across […]
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Changes to land from coastal storms can enhance habitat
October 13, 2021 | Island Features | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Considering the growing prevalence of drone photography and video footage over miles of natural landscape, a bird’s-eye view has been proven to be more than eye candy in determining climate impacts. But for wildlife managers at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, a major stopover for migrating waterfowl and shorebirds, the compact low-flying machines are also […]
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Latest dig yields new clues at Fort Raleigh Historic Site
September 24, 2021 | Island Features | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Archaeologists this week unearthed further evidence of late 16th century English activity near reconstructed earthworks at the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, although the discoveries — mostly fragments and shadows in dirt layers — are incremental details that will inform the First Colony Foundation’s meticulous effort to reconstruct a significant science laboratory discovered decades ago. “It’s an […]
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Waterways Commission weighs options for dredging Hatteras Inlet
September 16, 2021 | Fishing | By: Catherine Kozak
Chronic shoaling in Hatteras Inlet’s South Ferry Channel persists despite numerous dredging projects over the last five years, but now the Dare County Waterways Commission is facing a tough decision on how to proceed in the face of stubbornly intractable issues. Before the dredge Merritt’s scheduled return on Oct. 1, the panel has to decide […]
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For first time, Hatteras museum on track for state funding
July 2, 2021 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak | From The: Coastal Review
Thirty years ago, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum was officially designated a nonprofit educational organization. That was three years after the maritime museum on the end of Hatteras Island was authorized by Congress, and three years before Congress provided construction funds. But somehow, 13 years after the facility was transferred to the state, money […]
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‘Ditch of Death’: Navigation in Hatteras Inlet dicey….again
June 16, 2021 | Local News | By: Catherine Kozak
Co-published with Coastalreview.org As a charter vessel approaches the South Ferry Channel, what appears to be the shadowy head of a cobra rising from an undulating body waits on the west side of the channel entrance, as if ready to strike. Countless other visual imaginings are no doubt possible from the stunning birds-eye view of Hatteras […]
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