Environmental advocates reaffirm opposition to Corolla bridge

By Outer Banks Voice on December 2, 2015

The Southern Environmental Law Center has reiterated its opposition to the long-planned Mid-Currituck Bridge after political leaders announced their proposal to move the construction timeline up two years.

In a Nov. 19 letter to the N.C. Board of Transportation, the group that has represented environmental advocates in court cases against other road projects, including the new Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet, cited a number of factors why the proposed 7-mile-long toll span between the mainland and Corolla should not be built.

“With so many important transportation needs to fund in the state, we believe it would be unwise

to move ahead with this costly, destructive, and controversial project,” said the letter signed by SELC attorneys Kym Hunter, Nick Torrey and Ramona McGee.

Gov. Pat McCrory, state Sen. Bill Cook and state Rep. Paul Tine announced earlier in November that the Mid-Currituck Bridge and 108 other projects could be advanced to earlier in the state’s construction plans after legislation last summer changed how funds from the state’s motor fuels tax are distributed.

The change would mean construction on the Mid-Currituck could start as early as 2017, with a completion date between 2023 and 2025.

The SELC noted that the bridge scored extremely poorly under the Strategic Transportation Improvements

framework and does not provide a high level of benefit to North Carolina, and that the N.C. Department of Transportation has not yet determined if the bridge is financially feasible.

“Tolls to help fund the project were estimated at up to $26 one-way when toll revenue was supposed to fund 25 percent of the project cost, now NCDOT wants tolls to fund 60 percent of the cost,” the letter said.

SELC also said the bridge has not secured the environmental approvals necessary to move forward and will likely encounter significant legal and administrative delays.

The highway department bluntly countered the letter’s findings.

“This is another misguided attempt by left-wing activists seeking to delay or disrupt important connectivity and safety transportation improvements for the state of North Carolina,” the NCDOT said in a statement issued last week.

The SELC attorneys argue that only visitors from out-of-state would benefit from North Carolina spending its resources on the bridge, and that the Mid-Currituck has been in need of high-powered political support to stay in the NCDOT’s plans.

They also claim that in 2003, former state Senate leader Sen. Marc Basnight and then-Gov. Mike Easley were responsible for delaying construction of the new Bonner Bridge.

Basnight sent a lettter to Easley that construction of a 17-mile bridge over Pamlico Sound from the tip of Bodie Island to Rodanthe would make it much harder to fund the Mid-Currituck Bridge in the future because estimates topped $1 billion for the “long bridge.”

Easley responded nine days later that planning for the “long bridge” would be delayed six months so that Dare County could come up with a proposal that eventually was adopted as the preferred method to span Oregon Inlet.

That plan for a 3-mile-long new Bonner Bridge and shorter spans over hot spots on Hatteras Island was eventually the subject of lawsuits by the Southern Environmental Law Center filed in 2011 that were settled earlier this year. Construction of the new bridge will start this coming spring.

State and local leaders have long touted the Mid-Currituck as a way to alleviate growing traffic congestion, support tourism, create jobs, increase connectivity between communities and enhance safety by providing an additional evacuation route.

The SELC attorneys say the NCDOT has come up with alternatives to the bridge that could still achieve the same goals at a lower cost.

One of those would involve adding lanes to U.S. 158 and N.C. 12 in Dare and Currituck counties and using the center turn lane on U.S. 158 as a third outbound lane during evacuations.

The most recent estimate had the bridge costing at least $410 million, with the state kicking about $173 million in for initial planning, design work and right-of-way acquisition. The rest would come from the sale of bonds that would be paid back using tolls.

But SELC argues that the costs of the bridge were estimated as recently as 2012 at $650 million and the estimates for toll revenues to pick up the tab are riddled with uncertainties.

A public-private partnership with a firm based in Spain was cancelled in 2013, when lawmakers eliminated a state law championed by former state Basnight that mandated funding specifically for planning for the bridge.

“Until a clear financial plan is developed, it would be unwise to prioritize the bridge over other more needed projects for which the costs are fully known,” the letter states.

A number of environmental and other permitting hurdles still have to be cleared for the bridge the attorneys said, although a final environmental impact statement was issued three years ago that SELC said did not fully comply with the National Environmental Policy Act.

“The entire analysis was based on a fundamentally flawed baseline that overstated the need for the project while understating its impact on the environment,” the letter states.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina vacated in March the record of decision on the

proposed Garden Parkway outside Charlotte.

“In filings to the court, the Federal Highway Administration asserted that it had reviewed many other highway projects under a similar flawed analysis, including the Mid-Currituck Bridge,” and that more analysis will be needed, according to the letter.

The governor’s proposed project advancement list will be presented to the state transportation board in December, with a vote on the plan expected after the new year.

Click here to read the full letter »