Month: April 2016
Permuda Paddle Cleanup Coming Up
Mark Your Calendars Paddlers (SUP, Kayak, Canoe)!
A Paddle Trash Fishing Tournament will be held Saturday, May 14th in a collaborative effort to keep our local waterways clean.
Calling all Paddle Boarders, Kayakers, and Canoers! The National Esturarine Research Reserve, Keep Onslow Beautful, Plastic Ocean Project, On Shore Surf Shop, and the local paddling community are gearing up for a Paddle Trash Fishing Tournament on Permuda Island during the Great American Cleanup and Coastal Cleanup this spring.
Paddlers will meet up at Onslow Beach Access #2 (2950 Island Drive, North Topsail Beach 28460) at 8:30am on Saturday, May 14th for a safety briefing and cleanup event review. We will paddle over at 9am to fish for trash on Permuda Island.
Boats will be on hand to remove debris and for safety. If you do not have a kayak or paddle board, On Shore Surf Shop will be offering huge discounts on rentals for this cleanup. Prizes will go to the most trash cleaned up and most unique find.
Don’t forget to bring your lifejacket, reusable/refillable water bottle, and a hat or sunscreen if you need it. We will provide a water refilling cooler, bags, gloves, and other materials needed for the cleanup.
For more information about this cleanup or how you can coordinate your own waterway or beach cleanup, please email KeepOnslowBeautiful@onslowcountync.gov or call 910.937.1442.
NOAA MDP in NC to Plan for Incident Waterway Debris Removal
Federal, State, and Local agencies gathered this week for a workshop to help NOAA Marine Debris Program contractors draft a plan, or rather a field guide for proper protocol when addressing waterway debris caused by disasters, including hurricanes and the common nor’easter. Stakeholders spent two days at the NOAA Laboratory on Piver’s Island (Beaufort, NC) reviewing draft documents created by NOAA contractors and helped identify gaps in service and defined roles and proper protocols for managing waterway debris in the State.
The plan is scheduled to be published by the end of May 2016 and will be made available for local Emergency Managers, Solid Waste Staff, and Planners to use as a guide to address removal of waterway debris. Most of the time spent during the workshop was to make sure NC has a proper flowchart of who to call “if and when”, which agencies are responsible for removal, and if removal costs are eligible for public assistance funding.
A lot of progress has been made in the State to address storm debris management including down trees on roadways and properly permitted debris management sites, but not a lot of specific protocol information related to “waterway debris” has been available in the past.
Several agencies, including US Army Corps of Engineers, US Coast Guard, Natural Resources Conservation Service, NC Emergency Management, NC DACS Stream Debris Removal Project, NC DEQ Waste Management, and Dare County Emergency Management, covered what their roles are in managing or providing resources or assistance in debris removal through short presentations followed by Q&A on day one. Day two was mostly spend on roundtable discussion and facilitated group work on developing what needs to be included in the plan/guide as well as breakout group sessions on how well the flow chart worked to identify lead agencies when addressing specific scenarios which included containership spillage, oiled debris, and debris from a major disaster declaration.
The one big take away from the workshop, other than that local officials should use the flow chart to ensure with identifying lead roles, resources, and potential funding assistance, is that if there is a incident that creates waterway debris on public property, your first call should be to the National Response Center 1.800.424.8802.
Coastinista 