It's a sad but true fact: Many of North Carolina's beaches are losing their ocean fishing piers. Another one is on the figurative chopping block: the Bogue Inlet Pier in Emerald Isle.
But folks -- including the town of Emerald Isle -- aren't giving up without a fight.
“My family and I have been going to this pier for 30 years now. Emerald Isle wouldn’t be the same without it,” a Raleigh resident chimed in, according to an online petition and the Jacksonville Daily News.
Those sentiments summed up the feelings of 1,213 people who signed a petition online by midday Tuesday seeking support for Emerald Isle’s efforts to protect the last fishing pier in town.
The petition, on the Web site www.saveourpier.com, went up Monday. Most respondents backed Emerald Isle’s efforts to partner with the state of North Carolina to purchase Bogue Inlet Pier for perpetual public use. The pier and surrounding properties are under contract to be sold to a private real estate development firm with plans to redevelop an approximately 15-acre site.
The town wants to purchase only the pier and enough property for a parking lot.
“Bogue Inlet Pier is the last remaining ocean fishing pier in Emerald Isle, and one of only two remaining on Bogue Banks,” Town Manager Frank Rush told the newspaper. “The financial reality in today’s coastal real estate market is that ocean fishing piers are likely to be lost forever unless a public entity acquires and operates theses facilities. The town of Emerald Isle recognizes this reality and is taking proactive steps to ensure the perpetual existence of an ocean fishing pier in Emerald Isle.”
Meanwhile, the Daily News reports, the town is also partnering with the North Carolina Aquarium to secure a direct appropriation from the General Assembly to ensure the perpetual existence of a public pier in Emerald Isle.
Any appropriation by the General Assembly would supplant or supplement grant funds that are obtained and would be used to improve the durability of the pier.
In either case, Rush said, the town would convey Bogue Inlet Pier to the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores to operate as a part of the aquarium. It’s an arrangement that would be similar to Jennette’s Pier at Nags Head, which is owned and operated by the N.C. Aquarium Society in partnership with the N.C. Aquariums.
The addition of Bogue Inlet Pier to the aquarium system would provide more educational opportunities through aquarium programs and offer a possible research location for state universities and other marine science programs.
It would also be another step toward efforts to ensure public ocean fishing piers in the northern, central and southern coastal areas of North Carolina, Rush said.
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