NCDOT wins first round of legal fight over Currituck Sound bridge; opponents appeal
The legal fight over a planned $500 million bridge over Currituck Sound entered a new phase this week, when opponents appealed a federal court decision that allows the project to proceed.
The N.C. Department of Transportation says the 4.7-mile Mid-Currituck Bridge would make it easier for residents and tourists to get to and from the northern Outer Banks, especially during a hurricane evacuation. The bridge would cross the sound between N.C. 12 in Corolla and U.S. 158 near Aydlett, providing an alternative to the Wright Memorial Bridge at Kitty Hawk.
The N.C. Wildlife Federation and a group called Concerned Citizens and Visitors Opposed to the Mid-Currituck Bridge filed the lawsuit in 2019, asking the court to order NCDOT and the Federal Highway Administration to do another study of the need for the bridge and its environmental impacts.
The court sided with the transportation agencies in December. On Monday, the Southern Environmental Law Center said it would appeal on behalf of the opponents to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, Virginia.
The groups say the environmental impact study, completed in 2012, is outdated and doesn’t meet legal requirements. They say an updated analysis would show that the bridge isn’t needed and that roads around the bridge would be inundated by predicted sea-level rise before the project is paid for.
“The Mid-Currituck Bridge is an extraordinarily bad investment for North Carolina,” Kym Hunter, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, said in a written statement.
“The bridge would primarily serve out-of-state tourists and only for a few weekends in the summer,” Hunter continued. “When you factor in the limited use, the availability of cheaper and less damaging alternatives, and that much of the bridge project area will soon begin to flood and become less reliable due to sea-level rise, it is hard to think of a worse way for North Carolina to spend scarce transportation funds.”
NCDOT says it reevaluated the 2012 environmental study in 2019 and found no substantial changes to the project or conditions in the area to warrant doing the whole process again.
U.S. District Court Judge Louise W. Flanagan agreed. Flanagan cited a previous federal appeals court decision that said “courts may not ‘flyspeck’ an agency’s environmental analysis, looking for any deficiency, no matter how minor.” She wrote that most of the alleged flaws raised by the conservation groups “constitute flyspecking.”
NCDOT and the Federal Highway Administration conclusions, Flanagan wrote, “draw a rational connection from the updated facts found and their reaffirmed conclusion as to the Mid-Currituck Bridge.”
Flanagan also wrote that the court shouldn’t make the ultimate decision but instead insure that the government agencies took a “hard look” at all relevant factors, as required by federal environmental laws. They did in this case, she wrote.
Bridge tolls and completion date not set
For drivers coming south from Virginia, the new two-lane toll bridge would provide a 40-mile shortcut to Corolla, saving about an hour drive time each way on average during the summer, according to NCDOT. It would also reduce traffic backups on N.C. 12 in Duck and Southern Shores, especially on busy summer weekends.
In addition to the main bridge over the sound, the project also includes a 1.5-mile bridge over Maple Swamp on the mainland side. The toll plaza would be near the intersection with U.S. 158. The toll rates would not be set until the bridge is close to opening,
NCDOT had hoped to begin construction last year, but pushed the start back when the COVID-19 pandemic caused a drop in gas tax and other revenues.
The department now says it will take until 2024 to put together the financing, with construction to begin the following year. NCDOT has not yet set an expected opening date.
Opponents of the bridge say rising sea level will not only threaten the bridge directly, but also could hurt development and demand for vacation rentals on the Outer Banks. That in turn would reduce use of the bridge and the toll revenue meant to pay for it, they argue.
NCDOT says it will factor in the latest traffic and toll revenue forecasts when putting together a plan to finance the project.
NCDOT also says sea-level rise may actually be an argument for building the bridge. In its response to the lawsuit, the department wrote that the bridge “would be a useful asset” in part ”because it would allow a way off of the Currituck County portion of the Outer Banks if and when the Dare/Currituck County line portion of the barrier island is inundated.”
This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 2:38 PM with the headline "NCDOT wins first round of legal fight over Currituck Sound bridge; opponents appeal."
