Tag Archives: Highway 12

2014 Regulatory Reform

May 21, 2014. Yesterday, the Senate Agriculture and Environment Committee approved a 62-page regulatory reform bill that many committee members did not see until it was handed out at the beginning of the committee meeting.  Today, the Senate Finance Committee  gave  Senate Bill 734  (Regulatory Reform Act of 2014) a favorable report and the bill will go to the Senate floor tomorrow for an initial vote. Some of the most significant environmental provisions:

More legislative review of environmental rules.   In 2011, the General Assembly, returning to an idea from the 1980s,  put strict limits on  adoption of state environmental rules that are more stringent than federal rules on the same subject.  The   law  has  exceptions only for rules needed  to address a “serious and unforeseen threat to public health, safety or welfare” and rules required by state law, federal law, state budget policy or a court order.   (An earlier post  talks about  the practical difficulties and policy implications of  chaining  state environment standards so tightly to federal rules.)   Section 1 of Senate Bill  734  goes another step and  requires legislative review of  any  rule adopted under one of the  exceptions, possibly delaying the effective date of the rule for months.   The state’s Administrative Procedures Act normally requires legislative review of a rule only if 10  or more people send letters objecting to the rule.  Under Senate Bill  734,  ten letters of objection would still be needed to  get  legislative review of  a rule change that weakens environmental standards, but  the legislature would  automatically review any rule that  goes beyond minimum federal environmental standards.

Eliminate citizen appeals of toxic air pollution  permits. Sec. 2.2 limits citizen appeals of air quality permits to  decisions  involving a national ambient air quality standard. The problem is that “national ambient air quality standard” does not even cover the universe of federal air quality rules.  National ambient air quality standards cover six pollutants  (carbon monoxide,  lead, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, particulates, and ozone) that cause environmental and health problems when levels  reach a certain level in outdoor air.   But the Clean Air Act  also regulates a much longer list of  hazardous air pollutants or “air toxics”  associated with   cancer risk, infertility, birth defects  and other acute environmental and health effects. Mercury and benzene are examples of air toxics.  There are no national ambient air quality standards for air toxics; those pollutants are regulated under a different set of rules that require  a high level of pollution control on every regulated air toxic source. As  written, Senate Bill 734 would   bar  citizen appeals of  air quality permits issued for facilities that emit air toxics.

Emergency Authority to Waive Coastal Development Permits. Sec. 2.5 gives the governor the authority to waive Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) permits and environmental impact statements  for emergency repairs to a highway “that provides the sole road access to  an incorporated municipality or an unincorporated inhabited area bordering the Atlantic Ocean or any coastal sound, where bridge or road conditions as a result of the events leading to the declaration of the state of emergency pose a substantial risk to public health, safety, or welfare”. The description fits Highway 12 in Dare County — the  perennially endangered road on  Hatteras Island. (See an earlier post for the history – and cost — of maintaining Highway 12.) The idea of waiving state permits for rebuilding damaged segments of Highway 12 after a storm has some appeal — but may not have the desired effect. Aside from eliminating any state review of  project  impacts, waiving the CAMA permit only puts the  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers entirely in  control of the permitting process.

Environmental Audits/ Self-Reporting. Sec. 3.6   of the bill does two significant things: 1. Protects internal company  environmental “audits” from disclosure to regulatory agencies; and 2.  Provides immunity from civil penalties to a company that voluntarily self-reports a violation.

Limited immunity from penalties can make sense if limited to situations where the violator has  self-reported a recent, unintended violation. The Senate Bill 734 audit/self-reporting provision has not been limited to those situations and potentially provides the benefit of confidentiality and immunity to violators who have committed  longstanding, continuing violations of environmental laws. Under the bill, the violator can use a recent environmental audit to cover numerous  past  violations and acquire immunity by “self-reporting” those violations.  Although the bill does not give immunity for willful and intentional violations or violations resulting from criminal negligence, it would deny regulators access to internal environmental audits that may document  the intentional behavior.  In the worst case, the provision could be a gift to violators who gambled for years on their ability to evade enforcement.

It is difficult to ignore the implications for   violations  at coal ash impoundments. Under the bill, a company  inspection of a coal ash impoundment could be treated as  a confidential “environmental audit” and  withheld from state regulators. And the owner/operator of the coal ash impoundment   may  get immunity from civil penalties by  self-reporting violations that had gone on for years.

Other sections of the bill incorporate legislation  recommended by the Environmental Review Commission (described here).  Senate Bill 734 actually goes beyond the ERC recommendation on isolated wetlands and proposes to eliminate permit review of  isolated wetlands impacts of less than an acre in both the eastern and western parts of the state.  The bill  continues a recent pattern of  weakening  open burning  rules by limiting local government authority to regulate open burning.  The bill also proposes to shift rulemaking authority for the waste management and drinking water programs from the Commission for Public Health to the Environmental Management Commission.

The Highway and the Sea

Highway 12  extends from mainland Dare County south  across Oregon Inlet (by way of the Bonner Bridge) to Hatteras Island.    The road travels  through Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuse before reaching the Village of  Rodanthe at the southern end of the island.    At  several points, the island narrows to a ribbon between the Atlantic Ocean and brackish ponds in the wildlife refuge.

Highway 12 to Hatteras aerial

Photo credit: County of Dare / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

For decades, the state  has cleared, relocated, rebuilt and repalred storm-damaged sections of  the Hatteras Island highway. On March  19  2013, N.C. Gov. Pat McCrory issued an executive order  again declaring  a state of emergency  for  N.C. Highway 12 to allow use of state and federal emergency funds to repair Hurricane Sandy damage on Hatteras.  Repair costs for the most recent damage have been estimated at $8-10 million.

In 2010, the state  made  a commitment  to perpetually maintain Highway 12 as the main transportation link to Hatteras Island — without  assurance that it is technically possible and without  knowing the cost.  The commitment was  sealed   when the N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT)  decided  to replace the aging Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet  with a new bridge built in a parallel location.  Bonner Bridge carries Highway 12 from mainland Dare County across Oregon Inlet to Hatteras Island;  unless Highway 12  continues south on Hatteras Island,  traffic coming off the new  Bonner Bridge  will have nowhere to go.

In making the Bonner Bridge replacement decision, NCDOT looked at a number of other alternatives — including a sound-side bridge that would connect to Hatteras Island at the island’s midpoint (rather than bringing traffic directly south from Nags Head) and expanded ferry service in place of a bridge.   NCDOT cited a number of reasons for choosing  a new Oregon Inlet bridge and maintenance of Highway 12 as the preferred  transportation access to Hatteras Island —     including  the high cost of a sound-side bridge.  But it is also clear that  Dare County citizens  and local government officials   pushed  for continued road access from mainland Dare County to  Hatteras Island.

As  the state was deciding to go all in to  continue the historic road  access to Hatteras Island,  a combination of storm damage and shoreline erosion was  making it increasingly difficult — and expensive — to  keep  Highway 12 open.   In 2003, Hurricane Isabel breached Hatteras Island – creating a  small  inlet connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the waters of Pamlico Sound behind the island.  NCDOT  filled the Hurricane Isabel breach, but when the area breached again in  2011  NCDOT  built  a temporary bridge over the new inlet.   The storm that reopened the Isabel breach, Hurricane Irene, also opened  a second breach  to the south. The most recent damage occurred in October of 2012 when Hurricane Sandy overwashed the temporary bridge and  caused the highway to buckle and overwash  in  several places south of the temporary bridge.

Hwy 12_Oct 2012_Mirlo Beach

Highway 12 at Mirlo Beach (October 2012). Photo: The Virginian Pilot.

The Cost

In the last 25 years, the state has spent over $23 million (in state and federal funds) to repair the most threatened sections of Highway 12  on Hatteras Island.  That figure does not include  the  additional $8-10 million  needed to repair the October 2012 Hurricane Sandy damage.   (WRAL News  has compiled  a  25-year history of repair costs for the Hatteras Island sections of Highway 12  from information provided by NCDOT.)   The raw numbers don’t tell the whole story – the highway has experienced catastrophic  storm damage at an accelerating pace in the last few years.  Of the   $23 million spent since 1987, 75% was spent  in the last 10 years.

5-year costs in thousands of dollars.

The chart  shows Highway 12 repair costs for each five-year period since 1987. It does not include the costs of repairing the 2012 Hurricane Sandy damage; the most conservative estimate of Sandy repair costs ($8 million) would  bring  total  repair costs  since August of 2011 to more than $20 million. The costs also don’t include  long-term work needed to  keep  Highway 12 open  as the Hatteras Island shoreline continues to change. NCDOT has identified a number of erosion “hotspots” and possible breach locations  along the 12.5 mile section of highway between the Bonner Bridge landing and Rodanthe. The options under study include permanently  bridging the most threatened sections of the highway within its existing right of way. That approach could  put  bridged sections of Highway 12  hundreds of feet  offshore  within a few years as the island  itself continues to erode and migrate toward the mainland.

Replacing Bonner Bridge has been estimated to cost between $265 and $315 million (in 2006 dollars).  When you add the cost of  addressing the erosion hotspots and areas at risk of breaching  on Highway 12   south of  the  Bonner Bridge landing , the total cost of  maintaining road access from the Dare County mainland  to  Rodanthe  may be as high as $1.5 billion (also in 2006 dollars). The actual costs are unknown;  the final NCDOT/ Federal Highway Administration decision documents  for the Bonner Bridge  replacement  project  left  specific decisions about how to stabilize Highway 12 on Hatteras Island to be made in the future.

Right now, it all has the feel of decision-making avoided. Inertia will carry the state  along a path of  maintaining a highway in the sea  unless state leaders look again at the most basic questions:

1. What is the purpose of Highway 12 on Hatteras Island  — to provide safe access on and off the island or to maintain a  road from  mainland Dare County to Hatteras Island? The two are not  the same.

2. Can the state — at any reasonable cost — maintain   Highway 12 between Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe as the Hatteras Island shoreline continues to erode and migrate toward the mainland?

3. Is there another way to provide transportation access on and off the island that can more easily adapt as the Hatteras Island shoreline changes?

The NCDOT decision  to replace the Bonner Bridge in a  parallel location  and permanently maintain Highway 12 on Hatteras Island has been appealed by two wildlife organizations. That  appeal is pending in federal district court.  NCDOT’s evaluation of options for maintaining Highway 12 on Hatteras Island is ongoing.