The aging* Bonner Bridge runs across Oregon Inlet on the Outer Banks of NC. It is falling apart and needs some sort of replacement. There are two options being considered:
- A short bridge next to Bonner that is about $1 billion cheaper but goes through the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge
- A long bridge (18 miles or so) that avoids the wildlife refuge.
A review board is preferring the short option. In the past I've read that environmentalists prefer the long bridge but the review board says, as reported in the Winston-Salem paper, that the short bridge has less environmental impact. That makes sense to me: 16+ additional miles of bridge must have a large negative impact, whether it bypasses a wildlife refuge or not (and it costs $1 billion more).
The concern about the short bridge is that is somewhat ignores the fate of Highway 12 which sometimes seems to have inches of eroding beach between it and the ocean. The idea is to systematically build additional bridges where the beach erodes away.
Here is the reaction from two environmental groups:
One day after a review board agreed to replace the disintegrating Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet with a short span, two environmental groups asked for an investigation into the lawfulness of the process that led to the decision.
The Southern Environmental Law Center and Audubon North Carolina on Tuesday wrote to the White House Council on Environmental Quality to ask it to investigate whether the National Environmental Policy Act was followed.
Neither solution is a good one. I'd like for the state of North Carolina to seriously consider a third option: abandoning the bridge project and building ferry terminals on both sides of Oregon Inlet. There could be a short terminal that would work as long as Highway 12 through Pea Island is a viable road and a long terminal that bypasses the wildlife refuge. This option acknowledges that the beach moves and there is not much that people can do about it. North Carolina beach goers have much experience with ferries. The added inconvenience will slow growth on the southern Outer Banks, which is a good thing.
Someone ought to perform a benefit-cost analysis of this option and compare the net benefits to the two crazy bridge options. If the no bridge option has lower net benefits I'll be happy to give up tenure shut up about it.
*Bonner Bridge was built the same year that I was born.
