Bonner bridge can't span these troubled waters
Published August 11, 2014
by Tim White, Editorial Page Editor, Fayetteville Times, August 10, 2014.
We can agree, all of us, on this: It's our distinct good fortune that the Bonner Bridge is still standing.
OK, maybe there are a few folks out on Hatteras Island who'd like it to really be an island again, a little more remote and a little less inundated by tourists and their motor vehicles.
But that's a tiny minority, since most people who live on the island would be broke without that steady stream of visitors from near and far.
The bridge was built in 1963 and designed to last about 30 years. Since it's more than two decades beyond its expiration date, drivers may be excused a nervous twitch as they navigate the high span over Oregon Inlet.
State government leaders are twitching too, now that a federal appeals court unanimously rejected their plan to replace the 2.5-mile bridge with what is, essentially, a copy. The judges bought the argument by environmentalists that the proposed $216 million replacement isn't good enough.
They're right. It's not 1963 anymore, and conditions along the Outer Banks have changed. The thin strand of sand has grown more fragile near the inlet, especially along Pea Island. With almost every major storm, the ocean washes away big chunks of N.C. 12, the Outer Banks' one and only main highway. And we taxpayers dig in and pay for its rebuilding. More recently, the ocean has also carved some new inlets. That's a natural occurrence at barrier beaches, and it could become more common around Pea Island.
Environmentalists said the proposed replacement span won't alleviate any of those problems.
When state leaders refused to consider longer alternatives to the bridge plan, the Southern Environmental Law Center, representing two other environmental groups, sued the state, saying North Carolina was violating federal laws that protect national wildlife refuges - in this case, Pea Island. A lower court last year sided with the state, but last week, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling. Judge James Wynn wrote that, "At the heart of this case are the past and future of the Outer Banks. The effects of time threaten the structural integrity of the Bonner Bridge, while large storms and changing coastal conditions threaten the viability of the non-elevated portions of North Carolina Highway 12 south of the Bonner Bridge."
Environmental groups want to see a 17-mile bridge - the second-longest in the country - to replace the Bonner. It would cost more than $1 billion, state transportation officials say.
Instead of coming up with a viable counter-proposal, the pols in Raleigh are hurling insults. When the bridge was closed for nearly two weeks last December because of eroding sand, Phil Berger and Thom Tillis, leaders of the Senate and House, called the environmentalists "liberal elitists."
Transportation Secretary Tony Tata turned the hyperbole way up from there, calling the Environmental Law Center "ivory tower elitists" who go to court "with their lattes and their contempt."
The last refuge of political losers is demonizing their opponents. Maybe last week's appeals court decision will encourage them to take a deep breath and start working on a sensible compromise.
I don't like a plan that could halt public access to the Pea Island refuge (one of my favorite places on the planet), but any plan for the Bonner Bridge that doesn't consider the erosion problems along N.C. 12 is faulty to the point of being useless. The state has vastly understated the real cost of the road work there by ignoring the conditions on Pea Island and suggesting we replace the bridge as if the conditions south of it were unchanged since 1963.
The state drew a line in the sand, but like everything else on the Outer Banks, the sand washed away. It's time to come up with a Plan B that will serve everyone's needs in the 21st century.
