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KENANSVILLE — Cleanup of the Northeast Cape Fear River and its tributaries began last week at the Duplin/Pender County line and will cover approximately 40 miles.
The cleanup project was approved last year after Tropical Storm Debby reignited flooding concerns. The Board of County Commissioners appropriated $1.25 million to Soil and Water for storm debris removal in sections one through six of the river as a protective measure, declaring the debris and siltation in the river a public emergency.
Billy Ivey, Duplin County Soil & Water Conservation director, told Duplin Journal that the cleanup will extend all the way to Highway 111 and Highway 903. Cleanup began on section one at Rockfish Creek and will continue on section two from Deep Bottom Road to Chinquapin Bridge on Highway 41. Section three will proceed from Chinquapin Bridge to Hallsville Bridge, section four from Hallsville Bridge to Highway 24 between Beulaville and Kenansville, section five from Highway 24 to the Sarecta Bridges, and section six will finish from the Sarecta Bridges to Highways 111 and 903 near B.F. Grady School.
As part of the project, cleanup crews will remove debris from the river and place it at least 30 feet from the riverbank, securing the piles with environmentally friendly, high-tensile strength rope to prevent the debris from floating back into the river. The crews will also clean feeder creeks as they progress through the area.
Ivey explained that, while there is no guarantee the debris won’t end up back in the river, the proposed method has been effective in reducing the amount of debris washed back in.
He also told Duplin Journal that while this will not prevent flooding during major storm events, it will take longer for flooding to occur because the river will have fewer obstructions to the flow of water.
“What we have seen over the years in doing creek cleanout is that the water will flow out quicker instead of all those blockages, which makes it way slower in a flood event for the water to recede,” said Ivey.
He noted that they allow contractors ample time to complete the project since much of it depends on weather conditions.
“I don’t have an exact estimate at the time. It depends on weather, depends on the level of the river,” Ivey explained, noting that work cannot proceed if the river gauge reaches a certain level. “The river has to be a certain level on the gage and have the conditions for them to work, for safety reasons and to make sure they’re able to get and see all the debris.”
The total cost of the project is approximately $757,275.50. Ivey reported that contracts for Muddy Creek, Island Creek, and section six of the river were awarded to Snatch-It Clearing. Halls Tree Service received contracts for sections one through five of the river, while Hall-American Property Pros LLC was awarded the Rockfish Creek job.
Funding for this project is sourced from grants provided by the Department of Public Safety and the state’s Streamflow Rehabilitative Assistance Program (StRAP).
The last river cleanout took place in 2020-2021, extending from the Wayne County-Duplin County line to the Pender-Duplin line. According to the National Association of Conservation Districts, Duplin County has secured more StRAP funds than any other district in the state to assist in mitigating future flood damage.
“We’ve been very fortunate as a county,” Ivey remarked. “We’ve been able to put a lot of dollars on the ground with stream debris removal. The first round of STRAP, which was 2020, roughly in those years, we were able to get $1.9 million. This new round of STRAP funding for 2024 was $300,000. But we spent well over a million just on the river the first time, and that’s not even counting Florence, Matthew, Dorian, all those funds that we had spent on creek cleanout and all that.”
