Coastal Federation, town to improve Cape Carterert ponds

By BRAD RICH

Tideland News Writer

The N.C. Coastal Federation hopes to begin work this spring to turn the unintentionally drained and unsightly ponds in front of Cape Carteret Baptist and Presbyterian churches into an aesthetically pleasing and functional natural area.

Dr. Lexia Weaver, coastal scientist for the environmental organization in Ocean, said Thursday that the two churches on N.C. 24 are working on a conservation easement that will ensure that once the work is done, the area will remain in a natural state, with trees and other suitable wetlands vegetation.

We have given them (the churches) a draft conservation easement and have been going back and forth with them a little, said Weaver, who added that she believes that process will be completed sometime in January. Everything is looking good; we dont envision any hang-ups.

The easement, Weaver said, will allow the churches to install benches, walkways, bridges, plantings and other amenities that would make the pond areas suitable for worship and other uses, but will maintain the former pond sites as natural areas capable of handling the significant storm water runoff from the properties and other hardened surfaces, such as the highway.

Once the easement is in place, Weaver said, a surveyor can go to work, and the pond in front of the Presbyterian church can be completely drained. That is necessary, she said, because we dont really know for sure whats under there. We need to know what were up against so we can get it designed properly.

The federation plans to have the project designed by either a private engineer or by the College of Engineering at N.C. State University in Raleigh.

When the federation said early this year that it would undertake the task for its neighbors, Weaver had said she and others believed the project would cost $200,000 or less, would begin this fall and would be complete by the end of 2013. Now, however, she said its too early to estimate the cost.

The money the federation will use for the work is coming from the organizations sale last summer of a permanent conservation easement for land at North River Farms in eastern Carteret County to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Coastal Federation, town to improve Cape Carterert ponds