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Eye of a Human Hurricane: Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, Northern Outer Banks, North Carolina

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Eye of a Human Hurricane: Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, Northern Outer Banks, North Carolina 0071110 in: America's Most Vulnerable Coastal Communities, eds., Kelley, J.T., Pilkey, O.H., and Cooper, J.A.G.,: Geological Society of America Special Paper 460-04, p. 43-72, doi:10.1130/2009.2460(04). For permission to copy, contact [email protected]. Copyright 2009 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. The Geological Society of America Special Paper 460 2009 Eye of a human hurricane: Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, northern Outer Banks, North Carolina Stanley R. Riggs Dorothea V. Ames Stephen J. Culver David J. Mallinson D. Reide Corbett John P. Walsh Department of Geological Sciences, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858, USA ABSTRACT Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, North Carolina, are severely human- modifi ed barrier-island segments that are central to an age-old controversy pitting natural barrier-island dynamics against the economic development of coastal North Carolina. Bodie Island extends for 15 km from the Nags Head–Kitty Hawk urban area to the north shore of Oregon Inlet and is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Pea Island extends 19.3 km from the southern shore of Oregon Inlet to Rodanthe Vil- lage and is the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Bodie and Pea Islands evolved as classic inlet- and overwash-dominated (transgressive) simple barrier islands that are now separated by Oregon Inlet. The inlet was opened in 1846 by a hurricane and subsequently migrated 3.95 km past its present location by 1989. With construction of coastal Highway 12 on Bodie and Pea Islands (1952) and the Oregon Inlet bridge (1962–1963), this coastal segment has become a critical link for the Outer Banks econ- omy and eight beach communities that occur from Rodanthe to Ocracoke. The ongo- ing natural processes have escalated efforts to stabilize these dynamic islands and associated inlet in time and space by utilizing massive rock jetties and revetments, kilometers of sand bags and constructed dune ridges, and extensive beach nourish- ment projects. As the coastal system responds to ongoing processes of rising sea level and storm dynamics, efforts to engineer fi xes are increasing and now constitute a “human hurricane” that pits conventional utilization of the barriers against the natu- ral coastal system dynamics that maintain barrier-island integrity over the long term. INTRODUCTION Outer Banks (Stick, 1958). Cape Hatteras National Seashore is composed of a series of barrier-island segments located between In 1937, the U.S. Congress passed legislation authorizing eight villages (Fig. 1A). The U.S. Department of Agriculture development of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore on 119 km purchased land on the south side of Oregon Inlet, and President of Bodie, Hatteras, and Ocracoke Islands of the North Carolina Roosevelt established Pea Island Migratory Waterfowl Refuge by Riggs, S.R., Ames, D.V., Culver, S.J., Mallinson, D.J., Corbett, D.R., and Walsh, J.P., 2009, Eye of a human hurricane: Pea Island, Oregon Inlet, and Bodie Island, northern Outer Banks, North Carolina, in Kelley, J.T., Pilkey, O.H., and Cooper, J.A.G., eds., America’s Most Vulnerable Coastal Communities: Geological Society of America Special Paper 460, p. 43–72, doi: 10.1130/2009.2460(04). For permission to copy, contact [email protected]. ©2009 The Geological Society of America. All rights reserved. 43 0071111 spe460-04 page 44 44 Riggs et al. W ′ 75°30 35°42.0′N W ′ 75°29 35°40.0′N Figure 1. (A) Satellite image of the northeastern North Carolina coastal system shows the location of features referenced in this manuscript. Imagery is from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (MODIS) sensor provided by the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing, Col- lege of Marine Science, University of South Florida. (B) Map of the study area extends from the southern end of Bodie Island, across Oregon Inlet, and south along the 19.3 km of Pea Island to the village of Rodanthe. Distance along Pea Island is indicated in km south of the Oregon Inlet terminal jetty. The red star in Bodie Island is the location of the Bodie Island Lighthouse, and the red star in Rodanthe is the proposed landing point of the back-barrier causeway bridge. presidential executive order in 1938. Today, this is the Pea Island eral legislation passed in 1997 protects the function of national National Wildlife Refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife wildlife refuges by prohibiting construction of roads that inter- Service. Pea Island is a 19.3-km-long barrier segment separated fere with refuge functions. However, the cumulative impact of from Bodie Island on the north by Oregon Inlet and bounded on sea-level rise and numerous storms (hurricanes and nor’easters) the south by the village of Rodanthe (Fig. 1B). Establishment of through time has promulgated increased efforts to maintain and/or Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge did not include a right-of- reconstruct the transportation infrastructure, unfortunately at the way for North Carolina Highway 12 to connect the Oregon Inlet expense of the natural barrier-island dynamics within Pea Island ferry with the Outer Banks villages to the south. Rather, a high- National Wildlife Refuge. way right-of-way through the refuge was obtained by a deed of The Pea Island ocean shoreline is receding westward at easement. Highway 12 was built from Nags Head to Cape Hat- rates up to about –4 m/yr (Everts et al., 1983; Stone et al., 1991; teras in 1952. In 1962–1963, the Oregon Inlet ferry was replaced USACE, 1993; Benton et al., 1997; Fisher et al., 2004) as the by a 3.86 km bridge (Fig. 2) that connected Highway 12 on Bodie island attempts to migrate upward and landward in response to a Island with Pea Island. Construction of this infrastructure was rise in sea level in northeastern North Carolina (Riggs and Ames, critical for the economic development of the Outer Banks. 2003; Horton et al., 2009; Kemp et al., 2009). Each storm that Wildlife refuges have specifi c functions and become highly breaches the constructed dune ridges either destroys the road or managed ecosystems designed to meet those functions. Pea covers it with overwash sand, which is then mined and used to Island National Wildlife Refuge’s function is to preserve and reconstruct the dune ridges. This engineering of the ocean front manage Pea Island for migratory birds and other wildlife. Fed- impedes the natural island-building processes of inlets and over- 0071112 spe460-04 page 45 Eye of a human hurricane 45 in the public domain to defi ne an acceptable strategy for manag- ing the barrier-island resources while maintaining a viable coastal economy. This manuscript does not include a technical summary of previous barrier island–estuarine studies in other geographic portions of the world. METHODS The work conducted here is part of the North Carolina Coastal Geology Cooperative (NCCGC) research program funded by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Coastal and Marine Geology Program, U.S. National Park Service (USNPS), and U.S. Fish Figure 2. A September 2001 oblique aerial photograph shows Oregon and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Since 2000, the NCCGC has car- Inlet on the North Carolina Outer Banks with a dredge working to ried out a broad range of studies that utilize geophysical surveys maintain the inlet throat under the high navigation span of the Oregon in the estuaries and nearshore ocean, deep-core drilling (<75 m) Inlet bridge. The bridge connects Bodie Island and Cape Hatteras Na- on land areas, shallow vibracoring (<10 m) on the barrier islands tional Seashore and the Kitty Hawk to Nags Head urban area (on the left) to Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and the eight Outer Banks and in the surrounding estuaries and marshes, ground penetrat- villages (on the right). Photograph is from W. Birkemeier, U.S. Army ing radar (GPR) surveys on the barrier islands, and surveys of Corps of Engineers, Field Research Facility, Duck, North Carolina. shoreline change through time using georeferenced aerial photo- graphs and topographic surveys. The overall goal of the NCCGC research program is to develop a comprehensive understanding wash that build island width and elevation. The result is island of: (1) the Quaternary stratigraphic framework of the coastal sys- narrowing and increased vulnerability to future inlets (Everts tem (Fig. 1A); (2) the climate and sea-level history since the Last et al., 1983; Riggs et al., in press). Glacial Maximum, when the current coastal system was formed; Oregon Inlet opened in 1846 and migrated southward at and (3) the modern process-response dynamics of both the natu- aver age rates that ranged from 23 m/yr to 165 m/yr (Inman and ral and human-modifi ed coastal systems. Dolan, 1989; Pilkey et al., 1998; Riggs et al., in press). As the For this study, core materials were subjected to sedimento- navigational channel shifted southward, the fi xed navigational logic, micropaleontologic, and stratigraphic analyses. The result- span of the bridge required continuous dredging. Inlet migration ing data were placed in a three-dimensional framework derived has resulted in the exhumation of bridge pilings, causing bridge from geophysical (seismic and GPR) data and a temporal frame- segments to subside. Further, as the north end of Pea Island mi- work derived from Pb-210, Cs-137, C-14, and optically stimu- grated southward, the southern end of the bridge was in danger of lated luminescence techniques (Riggs and Ames, 2003, 2007; being stranded in Oregon Inlet. These problems led to plans to fi x Culver and Horton, 2005; Culver et al., 2007, 2008; Mallinson the location of the inlet with a pair of 3.2-km-long jetties (Pilkey et al., 2005, 2008; Horton et al., 2006, 2009; Vance et al., 2006; and Dixon, 1996).
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