[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 43 (Monday, March 5, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 9300-9301]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-04408]
[[Page 9300]]
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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Department of the Army, Corps of Engineers
The release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS)
for the Bogue Banks Master Beach Nourishment Plan, on Bogue Banks
Barrier Island, Carteret County, NC
AGENCY: Department of the Army, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, DoD.
ACTION: Notice of Availability.
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SUMMARY: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE), Wilmington District,
Wilmington Regulatory Field Office has received a request for
Department of the Army authorization, pursuant to Section 404 of the
Clean Water Act and Section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act, from
Carteret County to implement, under an inter-local agreement between
the towns on Bogue Banks barrier island, a comprehensive 50-year beach
and inlet management plan for the protection of approximately 25 miles
of Bogue Banks shoreline. The island's shoreline has been managed in
some capacity for over 35 years by Federal projects administered
through the COE Civil Works program and by non-federal projects
implemented by the County, and/or local municipalities through the COE
Regulatory permit program. Since 1978, roughly 11 million cubic yards
of sand have been placed upon the beaches of Bogue Banks at a total
cost of approximately $95 million. Past management efforts have largely
consisted of stand-alone projects that were undertaken to address site-
specific erosional problems. This stand-alone approach has limited the
efficiency and effectiveness of past and current efforts by the County
and island municipalities to implement shore protection projects and to
maintain the beaches. In order to address ongoing shoreline erosion in
a more effective manner, the County and island municipalities (Towns of
Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach, and Emerald Isle) are
proposing to combine their shore protection efforts under a more
efficient comprehensive 50-year beach and inlet management plan known
as the Bogue Banks Master Beach Nourishment Plan (BBMBNP).
DATES: Written comments on the FEIS must be received at (see ADDRESSES)
no later than 5 p.m. on April 2, 2018.
ADDRESSES: Copies of comments and questions regarding the FEIS may be
addressed to: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District,
Regulatory Division, ATTN: File Number SAW-2009-00293, 69 Darlington
Avenue, Wilmington, NC 28403. Copies of the FEIS can be reviewed on the
Corps homepage at, http://www.saw.usace.army.mil/Missions/RegulatoryPermitProgram/MajorProjects.aspx, under Bogue Banks 50-Year
Project: Corps ID # SAW-2009-00293.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Questions about the proposed action
and FEIS and/or to request a CD or written copies of the FEIS can be
directed to Mr. Mickey Sugg, Wilmington Regulatory Field Office,
telephone: (910) 251-4811 or [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
1. Project Purpose and Need. The proposed action is to establish
and implement a comprehensive, long-term, non-federal beach and inlet
management program that would preserve Bogue Banks' tax base, protect
its infrastructure, and maintain its tourism-based economy. The COE
Civil Work's investigation of a long-term federal Coastal Storm Damaged
Reduction (CSDR) project for Bogue Banks has been ongoing for nearly 30
years. As federal funding for shore protection projects has declined,
the future of a long-term federal CSDR project has grown increasingly
uncertain. The proposed action would address the ongoing trend of
declining federal shore protection funding by establishing a non-
federal management program under the autonomous control of the County
and the island municipalities. An island wide regional strategy was
developed to do the following: (1) Establish a regional approach by
consolidating local community resources, both financially and
logistically, to manage Bogue Inlet and the beaches on Bogue Banks in
an effective manner, (2) Provide long-term shoreline protection
stabilization and an equivalent level of protection along Bogue Banks'
25-mile oceanfront/inlet shorelines addressing long-term erosion, (3)
Provide long-term protection to Bogue Banks' tourism industry, (4)
Provide short and long-term protection to residential and commercial
structures and island infrastructure, (5) Provide long-term protection
to the local tax base by protection existing and future tax bases and
public access/use, (6) Maintain and improve natural resources along
Bogue Banks' oceanfront and inlet shoreline by using compatible beach
material in compliance with the North Carolina State Sediment Criteria
for shore protection, (7) Maintain and improve recreational uses of
Bogue Banks' oceanfront/inlet shorelines, (8) Maintain navigation
conditions within Bogue Inlet, and (9) Balance the needs of the human
environment with the protection of existing natural resources.
2. Proposed Action. Within the County's preferred alternative,
known as Alternative 4 (or the BBMBNP), the County would manage all of
the approximately 18 miles of beaches along Pine Knoll Shores, Indian
Beach/Salter Path, and Emerald Isle, along with the eastern shoreline
of Bogue Inlet. The oceanfront of Atlantic Beach is an on-going
recipient of regular USACE placements of navigation dredged material
and this is expected to be sufficient in for the needs of its
approximate 5.0-mile shoreline. However, the County's 50-year plan
would provide for interim maintenance nourishment should the USACE
placements cease or if storm-response nourishment for Atlantic Beach is
needed.
The 50-year management would employ a regular and recurring cycle
of nourishment events, in combination with periodic realignments of the
Bogue Inlet ebb tide channel, to continuously maintain beach profile
sand volumes at a 25-year Level of Protection (LOP). This LOP equates
to protection for upland structures against a 25-year storm event, and
nourishment events would be implemented according to 25-year LOP beach
profile volumetric triggers. Volumetric triggers were developed by
analyzing and adjusting design beach profiles in a series of iterative
SBEACH numerical modeling runs. The final modeling results indicated
appropriate volumetric triggers ranging from 211-266 cubic yards/foot
along Bogue Banks, averaging 238 cubic yards/foot. Based on variability
in the volumetric triggers, the project shoreline was divided into
management reaches ranging in length from 2.4 to 4.5 miles. Reaches
include Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach/Salter Path, Emerald Isle (EI)
East, EI Central, EI West, and Bogue Inlet. Based on the SBEACH
modeling results and observed background erosional loss rates, EI
Central, EI West, and Bogue Inlet management reaches are expected to
require recurring nourishment of approximately 0.06 to 0.23 million
cubic yards of material at intervals of six or nine years to offset
background erosion. For Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach/Salter Path,
and EI East, recurring maintenance events would place approximately 0.2
to 0.5 million cubic yards of material at intervals of three or six
years to offset background erosion. Actual maintenance nourishment
intervals would be expected to vary in response to background erosion
rate variability over the course of the 50-year project.
[[Page 9301]]
For Bogue Inlet management, the proposal has designated a ``safe
box'' within the inlet throat where the ebb channel would be allowed to
migrate freely so long as it remains within the boundaries of the safe
box. If the channel migrates beyond the eastern boundary of the safe
box (or toward Emerald Isle), this would trigger a preemptive event to
realign the ebb channel mid-center within the established boundary. The
limits of the safe box were developed and evaluated through empirical
analysis of historical inlet changes and supplemental numerical
modeling. Historical ebb channel alignments and corresponding inlet
shoreline positions were analyzed through GIS analysis of historical
aerial photography, National Ocean Service (NOS) T-sheet maps, and
LIDAR topographic maps. Past migration rates and corresponding
shoreline changes indicate that once eastward migration accelerates
toward Emerald Isle, the migrating channel has the potential to
threaten structures along the shoreline within two to three years.
Based on the historical patterns, a safe box was established with
boundaries corresponding to the location where acceleration of the ebb
channel towards the west end of Emerald Isle has occurred in the past.
The validity of the boundaries were then evaluated by modeling a series
of six idealized inlet configurations encompassing the range of most
relevant historical ebb channel alignments. Modeling results did not
show any additional geomorphological indicators of an impending shift
to accelerated migration that warranted modifications to the initial
safe box. Once the boundary threshold is triggered, the relocation
event would entail the construction of a channel approximately 6,000-
feet long with variable bottom widths ranging from 150 to 500 feet. The
dimensions of the channel would be similar to the footprint of the ebb
tide channel realignment construction completed in 2005. Maintenance
events of Bogue Inlet are expected approximately every ten to fifteen
years, with corresponding placement of dredged material on the beaches
of Emerald Isle.
Beach fill for all the proposed nourishment activities on Bogue
Banks would be acquired from a combination of sources including
offshore borrow sites, Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway disposal areas,
upland sand mines, and the management of the Bogue Inlet. The offshore
borrow sites consist of the Old Offshore Dredge Material Disposal Site
(ODMDS) and the current ODMDS, which are located approximately 3
nautical miles offshore from Beaufort Inlet, and Area Y, which is
located over 1.0 mile offshore from EI West reach. It is expected that
hopper dredge plants will be used to extract beach fill material from
the offshore borrow sites. Material would be transported from the
hopper dredges to offshore booster pumps and carried to the appropriate
nourishment reaches via pipeline. A hydraulic cutterhead dredge will
likely be used during the management of the inlet bar channel event,
which would transport the dredge material directly from the dredge
plant onto the beach via pipelines.
3. Alternatives. Several alternatives have been identified and
evaluated through the scoping process, and further detailed description
of all alternatives is disclosed in Section 3.0 of the FEIS.
4. Scoping Process. To date, a public scoping meeting was held on
September 30, 2010 in Morehead City; several Project Delivery Team
(PDT) meetings have been held, which were comprised of local, state,
and federal government officials, local residents and nonprofit
organizations; and the Draft EIS was released and published in the
Federal Register on April 14, 2017 (82 FR 17984).
The COE has coordinated closely with Bureau of Ocean Energy and
Management (BOEM), which is a cooperating agency, in the development of
the FEIS to ensure the process complies with the requirements of the
Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) and with the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Additionally, the COE has consulted
with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine
Fisheries Service Protected Resources Division under the Endangered
Species Act; with U.S. Fish and Wildlife and National Marine Fisheries
Service Habitat Conservation Division under the Fish and Wildlife
Coordination Act; and with the National Marine Fisheries Service
Habitat Conservation Division under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The FEIS
assesses the potential water quality impacts pursuant to Section 401 of
the Clean Water Act, and is coordinated with the North Carolina
Division of Coastal Management (DCM) to ensure consistency with the
Coastal Zone Management Act.
Brenda S. Bowen,
Army Federal Register Liaison Officer.
[FR Doc. 2018-04408 Filed 3-2-18; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3720-58-P