Cape Hatteras Lighthouse Newspaper Articles

Reprinted by permission of The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina

April 10, 1998

The News & Observer

Lighthouse debate resolves little

By JERRY ALLEGOOD; STAFF WRITER

Page: A3

MANTEO -- With the trappings and fervor of a political contest, the move-it and don't-move-it forces clashed Thursday at a congressional hearing on plans for saving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

But if either side made progress toward winning over the two people whose opinion probably matters most on the issue, there was no outward sign. U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth and U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones remained noncommittal.

The two sides took their views to Jones and Faircloth in a contentious hearing at the N.C. Aquarium in Manteo. Everyone attending seemed to agree that urgent measures were needed to preserve the structure, but a consensus on what those measures were seemed as far away as ever.

"I don't think it changed anybody's minds," Buxton resident Danny Couch, who favors protecting the lighthouse in place, said after the hearing. "We've been wrangling over this a long time."

After decades of erosion, the ocean now laps 120 feet from the lighthouse, prompting fears that one major hurricane or a series of winter storms could destroy it. The National Park Service, the custodian of the 128-year-old structure, has proposed that the lighthouse be moved - gently - a half-mile inland, at a cost of $10.5 million. Opponents of the plan say that moving the lighthouse is likely to destroy it and that a better course is to protect it in place with structures designed to b lock the force of waves and trap sand. The relocation opponents say shoreline hardening is also less expensive - at an estimated $1.7 million.

Jones and Faircloth said at the beginning that they wanted to hear from everyone before deciding. But after listening for 2 1/2-hours to experts, citizens and assorted officials, the two Republicans gave no sign of which way they were leaning. An overflow crowd of at least 150 people looked on.

"We will have the money to do whatever is best to do," said Faircloth, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which will consider the request.

Jones, whose 1st Congressional District encompasses Cape Hatteras, said he wanted to further consider arguments presented during the hearing.

About $2 million has already been approved for design work on the move, and money for relocation is included in President Clinton's proposed budget. Congressional action is expected later this year.

Despite the uncertainty over funding, the park service is continuing with a review of relocation designs by engineering firms, according to Bob Reynolds, superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Opponents hope to halt the process before it goes much further. Hugh Morton, the owner of Grandfather Mountain in Western North Carolina who has taken up the cause of resisting the lighthouse move, said he thinks his side has already won the battle because of concerns about costs and risk to the lighthouse.

Dozens of members of Morton's organization, Save Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, showed up at the hearing sporting patches and T-shirts with their emblem - a cracked lighthouse and the slogan "Don't move our lighthouse."

A succession of Hatteras Island residents, some of whom grew up beneath the lighthouse's beam, gave emotional accounts of seeing the lighthouse beside the ocean all their lives.

Jennifer Taylor, a student at Cape Hatteras School at Buxton, said the lighthouse should remain where it has always been. "The lighthouse will be ours in the future, not yours," she said.

But Bruce Robers, a relocation supporter, said nothing when it was his turn to speak at the hearing. He simply held up a photo of the lighthouse that showed the erosion that had brought the ocean close to the base.

Some of the relocation partisans wore patches with the message "Move it or lose it." They said anti-erosion structures on the beach were temporary solutions at best and would lead eventually to further erosion on beaches to the south.

Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation, said that protecting the beach near the lighthouse would prove more costly to beaches and taxpayers because more structures would be needed down the beach.

"Time is the one thing the lighthouse doesn't have much of," he said. "Because it can only be moved during a three-month window in the spring, any delay that causes the lighthouse to sit naked through another hurricane season could be fatal.

Section: News
Edition: Final
Estimated Printed Pages: 3

Index Terms:
NC
coast
Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

Caption:
photo

Bruce Robers, who favors moving the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, lets a large photograph that shows the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean argue his case.

Staff Photo by Jim Bounds

Copyright 1998 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

Record Number: 1998099135