The County has hired the director of the agency that denied the dredging the last time. I guess if all else fails, hire the guy who knows how to get it through the system. Seems like his moral compass just did a 180, but what do I know about it? Here's the article from th VA pilot:
By Jeff Hampton
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 21, 2008
A former director of a state environmental agency that has opposed dredging the Currituck Sound could help Currituck County get permission to dig a boat route to The Whalehead Club.
Charles Jones, former director of the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, has already met with local officials and is expected to work as a consultant in the county's third attempt to get a permit to dredge a channel to The Whalehead Club boat basin.
Jones retired from the agency last year and has become a private consultant.
Plans are to allow public access to the basin, created decades ago when hunters moored their rigs there. Several of Currituck's preserved historic boats could be docked there for viewing by the more than 10,000 annual visitors to The Whalehead Club.
But the way from deeper water to the boat basin has filled in over the years. Propellers from even small boats strike the bottom trying to pass through. The old channel needs to be dug out to about 4 feet, said Horace Bell, chairman of The Whalehead Preservation Trust.
State and federal environmental agencies, including the Division of Coastal Management, have opposed dredging in the Currituck Sound, saying it would disturb sub-aquatic vegetation and damage fish-breeding habitat.
Jones' expertise can help with the latest permitting, Bell said.
"We want to put some horsepower behind it this time," he said. "All we're interested in is the historic channel."
Old maps, Whalehead Club records, photographs and local stories provide evidence that a channel led to the boat basin at The Whalehead Club at least since Pennsylvania businessman Edward Knight built the lodge in the 1920s.
In 1996, Currituck County applied for a permit to dredge a channel to the Whalehead boat basin 2,250 feet long, 55 feet wide and 6 feet deep. The county gave up on the permit after a year of objections from environmental agencies.
Four years later, the county hired Environmental Professionals Inc. of Kill Devil Hills to apply again. This time, the channel proposal was reduced to 1,900 feet long, 50 feet wide and 5 feet deep.
The state, backed by several federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, denied the permit in a letter dated Sept. 13, 2000.
In May 2004, ferry employees were reported for prop washing not far from the Whalehead boat basin. The ferry division planned to build a docking area for a passenger ferry to carry students from Corolla to the mainland. The employees were found guilty of charges related to illegal disturbance of the sound bottom.
State and federal environmental agencies forced the ferry division to refill the dredged area.
