[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.

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    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