County commissioners take action to prevent flooding

KENANSVILLE — The Duplin County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a motion to appropriate funds to remove debris from the Northeast Cape Fear River in order to help alleviate flooding from Tropical Storm Debby and future potential flooding events. The decision was made during an emergency meeting held on Friday morning.

Commission Chair Dexter Edwards said he called the meeting, knowing that time was of the essence. “My information says that we’re going to crest Sunday about 18-plus feet, but that’s probably about the fifth highest on record, somewhere in that ballpark,” Edwards said. “What I wanted to do is get this group together and talk about what we may or may not be able to try to do help in the future.”

The river actually crested at 16.54 feet on Saturday, according to the National Water Prediction Service and NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association). As of Monday afternoon, the river at Chinquapin had receded to 15.7 feet, with river levels continuing to fall through the week.

Jimmy Dixon, who represents Duplin County in the N.C. House of Representatives, said that Tropical Storm Debby had reignited concerns with the Northeast Cape Fear River and flooding.

Those concerns led him to contact Alliance Integrated Solutions of Lumberton, which is a debris removal company specializing in cleaning rivers, culverts and other waterways.

“The concept that I understand, and they can explain it better, is to begin to identify and remove any immediate stuff that might be blocking bridges, backing up on bridges and stuff like that,” Dixon said. “The big takeaway for me is this. In an emergency situation, there’s a peculiarity in that if entities are going to access pots of money, the time to do it is when the river is rising, not when the river’s falling. That’s my simple way of putting it.”

He added that the county would only need to provide a 25% match to fund the project, because federal funds are more readily available for emergency projects. “If something is going to start, it needs to start when the emergency is happening,” he explained.

Director of Emergency Management Matt Barwick shared that at the time of the meeting, 11 a.m. on Friday, the county was in minor flood stage. “We do expect some impacts in secondary roads and some of our major highways in that area, like Highway 41 and Highway 50,” Barwick said.

He said that as of Friday morning, emergency services had responded to about 100 incidents with storm-related emergencies. However, there were not any injuries or deaths thus far.

In addition, about a dozen roads were closed due to flooding.

With that in mind, Chair Edwards asked Josh Gill and Trey Winfree of Alliance to share what they can do for the county’s waterways.

Gill stated, “The biggest part is making sure that you’re clearing the debris that’s readily available on bridges and culverts and stuff of that sort.”

Alliance has specialized equipment, and crew members on standby ready to get to work removing the debris. “We’re completely ready to mobilize and assist, and start pulling this debris off before the river gets too high and starts pushing it up against your bridges,” Gill said.

“You’ve also got another storm out in the Atlantic. The last thing we would want is have a potential issue clogging up the waterways and another storm come through.”

Winfree, president of Alliance Integrated Solutions, explained Alliance’s process. “We run out, we grab the debris, we haul it out and we dispose of it in a way that it’s not going to go back and clog up the stream,” he explained. “We’re also running vac trucks in some of the smaller culverts and what happens is sediment and even trash gets stuck in these culverts and they clog it up. So we go out with the vac truck. We have a wide rage of things that we’re capable of doing. The key is that if we can get the water to the river and get it out of here, then you lessen the risk of flooding.”

Edwards said that the debris removal would need to start near the Pender County line. “If that water can move on out of here, this water that ends up doing all the damage we’ve had around Chinquapin before, there’s a greater chance of [flooding] not happening.”

Billy Ivey, soil and water interim department head, agreed. “You’ve got to have an outlet. If you don’t have an outlet on the low end, it’s gonna back up.”

Commissioner Justin Edwards stated that people in his district have told him that the river really needs to be dredged in order to prevent flooding.

Gill said dredging could be possible in the future, but added, “I think once you start pulling the debris, especially from around the bridges and anywhere that’s accessible, you’re gonna have loss of sediments and it will start pushing stuff back out. You watch the hydrology change as you do this.”

After Chair Edwards asked how quickly the work could get started, Gill responded, “We can start work within hours. We’ve got equipment that’s staged and ready.”

Gill also said that Alliance could help the county with the paperwork for federal funds, and would provide any assistance possible.

Rep. Dixon cautioned the commissioners that the work needs to not only get done, but continue after the effects of Tropical Storm Debby have died down. “This event is pretty serious, but it’s not like Fran or Floyd, which I think is a blessing, because what’s happened now is it’s reignited a discussion about this,” he said. “Past history, we’ve gotten excited, we’ve done a little bit and then we’ve forgotten about it. We’ve been thinking about it and forgetting about it since Hurricane Hazel, and that was in 1954.”

County Manager Bryan Miller said that there was $1.5 million available from a recent appropriation made by the state to Duplin County Soil and Water. After some discussion, Justin Edwards motioned to appropriate $1.25 million to Soil and Water as an emergency protective measure and additionally declare the debris and siltation in the Northeast Cape Fear River as a public emergency.

His motion passed unanimously.

“I think we’re doing the right thing,” Commissioner Elwood Garner said. “I just do want to be on the record as saying I don’t think we should stop with this. If we can identify funding through everybody’s cooperative efforts, we’ll keep marching right on up that river and get it to be what it was back when I was a child, how I remember it to be.”

The work will start after the project has gone through the bidding process, said Assistant County Manager Carrie Shields.