Ports Authority needs a Radio Island ‘time out’

 (Part 7 in a Series)

Not all of Radio Island in Morehead City is owned by the North Carolina State Ports Authority. The whole island consists of about 253 acres. The Ports Authority holds the deed to some 200 acres.

About 154 acres of Ports Authority property on Radio Island property remains undeveloped but reserved for future expansion of Morehead City port operations.

Looking south toward the Atlantic Ocean, Radio Island is at the extreme left in this photograph, separated from the main port at Morehead City.

 

The grand plan advanced by the Ports Authority in 2024 calls for using Radio Island to attract business within the offshore wind energy and the automotive industries. Details of the project are outlined in the official state Record of Decision (ROD) for a “Multi-Use Terminal.”

Planned improvements to benefit the offshore wind industry include a 300,000-square-foot fabrication/assembly building with about 65 parking spaces and a 60-acre gravel pad for storage/laydown to accommodate wind turbine components.

 

 

Planned improvements to benefit the automotive industry include a 40-acre asphalt parking lot with about 4,000 parking spaces for storage of finished vehicles arriving at the port via roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessels.

 

New rail spurs and sidings for car carriers accessing the lot from Radio Island Road are part of the plan, as well as a 100,000-square-foot warehouse/office building.

What consideration is given to “compatibility” with people who have dwellings on Radio Island and the existing business enterprises located there?

The ROD mentions briefly that a Local Officials Informational Meeting was held on Aug. 11, 2023, at the Morehead City town hall. “Attendees included staff from the State Ports Authority, Morehead City, Beaufort and Carteret County. No formal issues of concern were identified during the meeting.”

Also, a Public Information Meeting was conducted on Sept. 26, 2023, at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City. “Approximately 22 people attended – residential owners, business owners and others. The comment period for the public meeting was 15 days. Three comments were received prior to the meeting and three were received during the meeting.”

It was pointed out afterward that the public meeting was publicized only once in a Sept. 10 legal notice in the Carteret County News-Times.

That may have satisfied the minimum legal requirement for the State Ports Authority, but it’s a paltry and pitiful effort on the part of the Ports Authority’s leadership team to engage community members and its neighbors on Radio Island.

 

“The Radio Island Beach Access is a convenient destination for locals as well as visitors. Renowned for its calm waters and sandy shorelines, this stretch of slightly inland shoreline, which is managed by Carteret County Parks and Recreation, has ample parking.” 

“Located just barely off the beaten path, this local beach is a hidden gem that beach-goers adore.” – CoastalGuide.com

 

There are 102 units in the seven-story Olde Towne Yacht Club condominium complex, which opened on Radio Island in 2002. 

More recently, 61 townhomes have been built within the Inlet Cove development on Radio Island. (Both properties are shown in the photo below.)

 

Successful businesses with a long history on Radio Island include Radio Island Marina and Snug Harbor Cottages. The latter is described as a “traditional Coastal Carolina fish camp,” offering eight cabins with boat slips.

 

(Combined, these homeowners and business owners are hefty taxpayers. They deserve a voice in what happens at the port in Morehead City…as does everyone who lives, works and plays in Carteret County. We are all stakeholders.

A News-Times editorial on Oct. 4, 2023, shed more light on Radio Island, commenting: “The possible use of the facility as a staging area for off-loading vehicles and subsequently transporting them to inland facilities via rail or truck would put an unreasonable burden on the infrastructure of the surrounding towns.”

Simply, Morehead City and Beaufort “would be unable to handle the increased truck traffic that this distribution would create, and a long train of vehicles passing through the middle of Morehead City would create a nightmarish traffic jam.”

 

During the past two years, enthusiasm for offshore wind has waned considerably.

Future investment in offshore wind infrastructure in the United States may be too risky to appeal to state governmental leaders, given the current swirling political environment. “Hesitancy” appears to be the watchword.

Looking within North Carolina, we reflect on a state budget request made in 2022 by Gov. Roy Cooper. 

He urged the General Assembly to insert $20 million in the state budget for the North Carolina Ports Authority to “develop wind energy-related projects on Radio Island” in Morehead City. That didn’t happen.

At the time, Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Arapahoe, who represents Carteret County, told the News-Times that Gov. Cooper’s vision “to turn a big portion of Radio Island into a staging area for wind-energy construction and component shipping,” might be putting the cart before the horse.

 

Sen. Sanderson questioned whether the community was “ready for a massive influx of heavy traffic to and from the port” on U.S. 70/Arendell Street.

He said that narrow stretch of land to Radio Island is challenged to accommodate the railroad, the highway and a bridge. 

It’s one of the things that has held back major development at the port’s Radio Island site all these years, Sen. Sanderson pointed out.

To help lobby for wind energy funding, Gov. Cooper established the North Carolina Task Force for Offshore Wind Economic Resource Strategies (NC TOWERS).

The task force recommended upping the ante considerably in 2024, requesting the state legislature “appropriate up to $50 million for improvements to Radio Island to support offshore wind.” 

It was labeled as a “strategic investment in waterside infrastructure to facilitate offshore wind economic development opportunities.” That didn’t happen, either.

This seems to be a good time to hit the “pause button” and revisit potential development of Radio Island.

Is offshore wind energy policy ‘blowin’ in the wind?’

(Part 6 in a Series)

U.S. offshore wind energy projects had the wind knocked out of their sails with President Donald Trump’s attempts to pull the plug on the construction of offshore wind farms.

Ray Gronberg of Business North Carolina magazine reported on March 23, 2026, about the most recent “development.”

 

He wrote that TotalEnergies, based in Paris, France, “agreed with the Trump administration to give up its offshore wind lease off the North Carolina coast, along with a larger project near New York (at New York Bight).”

 

“The company says its studies showed ‘that offshore wind developments in the United States, unlike those in Europe, are costly and might have a negative impact on power affordability for U.S. consumers,’” Gronberg wrote. “Total is among the world’s largest energy companies.”

Gronberg said the settlement involves payment by the U.S. government of $928 million to compensate TotalEnergies for giving up rights to the Carolina Long Bay lease and another off the coast of New York state.

 

The Carolina Long Bay site, containing about 110,000 acres, lies roughly 22 miles offshore, south of Bald Head Island in Brunswick County. It was slated to produce enough energy to fuel about 300,000 homes.

 

Gronberg said “The New York Times reported that Total will get $133 million for giving up the North Carolina lease, with the New York project accounting for the balance.”

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told reporters at a recent oil-and-gas industry conference in Houston: “The era of taxpayers subsidizing unreliable, unaffordable and unsecured energy is officially over.”

 

“Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers,” Burgum asserted.

Gronberg noted: “President Donald Trump has shown repeated disdain for offshore wind.”

 

“The Chapel Hill-based Southeastern Wind Coalition criticized the settlement. Offshore wind is ‘a hedge against more volatile fuels like natural gas. Now is the time to be expanding our options, not taking them away,” said Katharine Kollins, the group’s president.

 

“U.S. Department of the Interior officials said the deal hinges on TotalEnergies putting the $928 million into a liquified natural gas (LNG) facility in Texas, offshore oil development nearby and into shale-gas production,” Gronberg added.

After those investments are made, the United States “will terminate the leases and reimburse the company,” they said.

Federal officials said the French company “has pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States.”

Liz McLaughlin of WRAL News in Raleigh said the decision to cancel Carolina Long Bay drew “sharp reactions” from energy analysts.

 

She talked to Kollins as well. “I think folks are trying to figure out how to reconcile this with the fact that we do need more electrons on the grid,” Kollins commented. “Every state right now is looking at how we can develop more energy, not how we should be taking options off the table.”

“Using nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money to remove an option for North Carolina and then require that company to invest in LNG just doesn’t feel right,” Kollins added.

McLaughlin said that North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein criticized the Trump administration for “spending nearly $1 billion in taxpayer money to pay off a company to stop investments in the clean energy we need,” calling it “a terrible deal for the people of North Carolina and our country.”

“The debate reflects a broader divide over how to meet growing electricity demand while keeping costs down,” McLaughlin wrote. “The federal government and industry leaders backing the deal say natural gas offers a more dependable source of power, especially as the grid faces increasing strain.”

“Part of that shift now points to LNG, which is traded on a global market,” she said. “That means prices can rise or fall based on international demand, geopolitical tensions and export levels – dynamics that do not affect wind energy.”

“The cancellation also highlights uncertainty around offshore wind development in North Carolina,” McLaughlin said. “Duke Energy, the state’s largest utility, holds a neighboring lease in the same area as Carolina Long Bay but paused development last year as it reevaluated costs and policy conditions.”

To sum up, Kollins said: “When we limit our choices, we limit our ability to control costs.”

 

Trista Talton (shown above) of the Carolina Review, published by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which is based in Carteret County, interviewed Karly Brownfield (shown below), who is senior program manager with the Southeastern Wind Coalition.  

 

Brownfield said that the agreement “feels really counterproductive” at a time when people are closely watching their energy costs at home and at the gas pump.

“It’s also completely unprecedented to take a lease payment and then refund it in exchange for investment in the natural gas industry. That has never happened before,” Brownfield said.

Katie Harris, vice president of federal affairs with the BlueGreen Alliance based in Washington, D.C., was quoted in Talton’s article, saying: “Donald Trump truly can’t leave a good thing alone. His never-ending vendetta against offshore wind shows that he either doesn’t understand the affordable energy crisis or that he just doesn’t care….”

 

Déjà vu. This whole political scenario spins us back to 1963 when legendary singer/songwriter Bob Dylan released his magical song “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

 

Philosophers suggested at the time that the tune was an expression of “frustration over humankind’s inability to achieve lasting harmony and stability.”

The Trump administration argues that offshore wind structures pose national security threats as their turbines could interfere with radar signals,” reported Rachel Frazin of TheHill.com, a unit of Nexstar Media Group.

 

Frazin said President Trump has voiced a longstanding disdain for wind power, saying repeatedly that “he does not want to see new wind energy projects built during his tenure.”

Clearly, Trump’s actions, including the cancellation of future leases for offshore wind farms, have significantly hampered the industry, wrote Gareth McGrath of the Wilmington Star-News.

 

 

Delays, uncertainties and political maneuvering could seriously destabilize the entire industry, especially here in North Carolina, according to some energy experts.

Building offshore wind farms is incredibly capital intensive, so investors are nervous and are likely to sit tight on the sidelines until the turbulence subsides.

 

 

The North Carolina State Ports Authority has been looking to get into the wind turbine business. In 2024, it “floated a plan to build a multi-use terminal that would support the state’s offshore wind and automotive industries at its Morehead City port,” McGrath added.

“According to an economic study, a large-scale offshore wind project could generate nearly $3.7 billion in net economic impact for North Carolina,” he said.

“With federal support for renewable energy sources looking shaky at best, it isn’t known what that might mean for states that had planned on integrating lots of offshore wind into their future energy grids as a way of increasing their clean energy footprint and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” McGrath wrote.

Jake Bittle of Grist, an independent media organization in Seattle, Wash., said the Trump policies related to offshore wind have had a dizzying effect on major renewable energy developers.

 

“At the same time, developers encountered a wave of opposition from fishermen’s groups…and shoreline residents concerned about their ocean views,” Bittle wrote.

It’s like the offshore wind industry was frozen in-place during 2025. “There are no large-scale projects in the pipeline,” Bittle wrote.

He shared an interesting tidbit from an energy consultant who advises offshore wind developers: “In order for someone to get a commercial gleam in their eye, you need alignment with the federal government, the state government and the market. That’s gone, and it makes projects literally impossible.”

“Industry insiders say global firms like Ørsted (of Denmark) and Equinor (of Norway) have little desire to make further investments in the U.S. market, though they’re still holding on to their federal leases in windy sections of the ocean,” Bittle wrote.

 

Is Radio Island ‘on hold’ for port development?

(Part 5 in a Series)

In 1964, the North Carolina State Ports Authority acquired a large chunk of Radio Island in Morehead City for future development.

 

Port officials have been waiting, waiting, waiting for the right opportunity to come along.

In February 2024 – some 60 years later – the Ports Authority published a plan to proceed with a project described as a “Multi-Use Terminal” for Radio Island. Details were contained in the State Record of Decision (ROD) document. The price tag was listed as $250-285 million.

As background, Radio Island was created in the 1930s by “spoils” – the sand, silt, soil and organic matter that is removed from the bottom of waterways during dredging, which is a process that clears channels for navigation.

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ dredging project at the Morehead City port in 1936 increased the channel depth to 30 feet.

The man-made, 253-acre island is situated between the mainland municipalities of Morehead City and Beaufort.

 

Originally known as Inlet Island, it was renamed Radio Island after the Carteret Broadcasting Co. built a radio tower for station WMBL there in 1947.

 

 

 

Today, the Ports Authority owns about 200 acres on the west side of Radio Island, and the bulk of this property remains undeveloped.

The main port terminal on the Morehead City mainland sits on about 128 acres, and officials say it is operating at nearly 100% warehouse capacity, so Radio Island is perceived as the best alternative for any expansion of port operations.

 

According to the ROD document published more than two years ago, the Multi-Use Terminal was envisioned to support manufacturing operations associated with the offshore wind energy and the automotive industries…adding a minimum of 150 jobs.

Plans include creation of a 60-acre wind energy laydown area and construction of a 300,000-square-foot manufacturing/office facility.

To serve automotive customers, Radio Island would also be the site of a 40-acre asphalt parking lot to accommodate the storage of 4,000 imported finished vehicles as well as a 100,000-square-foot combination automotive warehouse/office.

Additional project components included modifying the existing pier to accommodate roll-on/roll-off (Ro-Ro) vessel operations, construction of a 1,600-foot berthing facility to accommodate larger or multiple vessels, new rail spurs and sidings for car carrier vehicles.

Here is a collection of photos of Ro-Ro ship activities from other ports, to provide a point of reference:

 

During the past two years, there’s been a lot of turmoil within the industries that were targeted by the Ports Authority. Much of this can be attributed to the changing of the guard in the White House in Washington, D.C.

In review, North Carolina has invested heavily in two mega-site automotive projects. 

One is the Toyota electric vehicle battery plant near Liberty in Randolph County. North Carolina granted the company a $435 million economic development incentives package.

The new Toyota facility was formally dedicated on Nov. 13, 2025. Toyota executives said the $13.9 billion investment will create more than 5,100 jobs to produce lithium-ion batteries for hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs).

 

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein participated in the dedication ceremonies.

 

With 14 battery production lines, the plant is viewed as “a cornerstone of Toyota’s North American production.”

The Toyota logo has three ovals. “The overlapping inner ovals exhibit the mutual, trustful and beneficial relationship between the customer and company.”

“Moreover, the overlapping ovals form a stylized ‘T’ for the first letter of Toyota, and the outer oval represents the brand’s global presence.”

Meanwhile, VinFast Auto Ltd., a Vietnamese automaker, was recruited by North Carolina, with the state coughing up nearly $1.2 million in economic development incentives, to build a $4 billion electric vehicle assembly and battery manufacturing plant near Moncure in Chatham County. 

It was initially forecast to potentially employ about 7,500 people.

 

However, this project has had rough sledding from the get-go. Construction has been delayed several times, and the target date for the plant opening has been pushed back to 2028.

Company officials say they’ve prioritized expansions in India and Indonesia, deferring large-scale entry into U.S. and European markets.

 

Complicating matters is the fact that VinFast consistently struggles to turn a profit, according to Reuters. This is causing a lot of anguish for economic developers in North Carolina.

Most recently, Ray Gronberg of Business North Carolina magazine reported on March 16, 2026, that VinFast has reduced its employment forecast to about 1,400 jobs.

“That’s 81% lower than previous expectations of 7,500 jobs, reflecting a more sober outlook for EVs now than four years ago,” Gronberg wrote.

The company reported a $3.9 billion net loss for the 2025 calendar year, according to Gronberg.

Terms of its agreement with the State of North Carolina require VinFast to start construction by July of this year.

 

“In addition to state incentives, legislators also allotted $450 million to pay for related infrastructure,” Gronberg wrote. “The state has deployed part of that money to pay for site prep, roads, and water and sewer upgrades, reasoning that if the EV factory falls through, a fully prepared industrial ‘mega-site’ will remain.”

“Demand for EVs in the U.S. has declined sharply after the elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit on Sept 30, 2025. Many automakers are pulling back on EV investments or shifting to hybrid models combining gas-combustion and electric powertrains,” Gronberg said.

 The VinFast logo is “a sleek, stylized letter ‘V,’ representing Vietnam, Vingroup (the parent company) Victory, Vigor and Velocity.”

 Next, we’ll see how the wind is blowing with offshore wind turbines.