State agency balks on Wilmington dredging project

(Part 2 in a Series)

Opposition to the proposed $1.35 billion Wilmington Harbor Navigation Improvement Project seemed to swell about a month ago when an agency of the North Carolina state government issued a formal objection to dredging plans set forth by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

Port City Daily, an online newspaper based in Wilmington, was among the first news media outlets to report on Feb. 26, 2026, that the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management (DCM) had expressed “serious concerns” about USACE’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS).

 

Specifically, Tancred Miller, DCM director, said his unit declines to support the project because the DEIS contained “insufficient information regarding the exacerbation of PFAS contamination in the river,” according to Port City Daily.

 

Many of the concerns about deepening the channel in the Cape Fear River and the Port of Wilmington appear to focus on the PFAS issue.

 

“PFAS present serious environmental and public health threats,” say Dr. Vasilis Vasiliou (shown above) and Dr. Robert Bilott (shown below), both of Yale University in New Haven, Conn.

 

PFAS are synthetic chemicals widely utilized in consumer and industrial products since World War II, and “are now linked to alarming levels of contamination in drinking water supplies,” they said.

Dr. Bilott commented: “PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are a completely man-made family of chemicals, formed by artificially connecting carbon and fluorine. PFAS are known for their strength, stain resistance, grease protection and water resistance. They are used in a wide variety of products, and there are estimates that as many as 14,000 different PFAS compounds now exist.”

Dr. Vasiliou added: “PFAS are often called ‘forever chemicals’ because they contain an exceptionally strong bond, which makes them highly resistant to breakdown. As a result, they persist in the environment for decades or longer – in water, soil and even living organisms. Their environmental and biological persistence means they can accumulate over time, raising long-term concerns for ecosystems and public health.”

Dr. Jamie Alan, a researcher at Michigan State University in East Lansing, said: “Unfortunately, PFAS can easily get into the air, food, soil and water. Once you’re exposed to PFAS, they can accumulate in your body…where they can settle in the liver, kidney and blood.”

 

She mentioned that PFAS have been linked to a slew of diseases like obesity, hormone suppression and infertility, liver and thyroid diseases…in addition to a variety of cancers.

Local environmentalists assert that the Corps’ DEIS is seriously flawed, because USACE “has resisted conducting sediment testing for PFAS.”

“The Corps didn’t even mention PFAS in its entire DEIS,” reported science writer Patrick Sisson in a recent article for Scientific American magazine.

 

Folks like Kemp Burdette of the Cape Fear River Watch organization have expressed alarm, citing the long history of PFAS poisoning in the Cape Fear River.

 

In 2017, it was revealed that for several decades toxic contaminants were routinely discharged into the river by manufacturers located in the Fayetteville vicinity. It all flows downriver.

To drive the point home, Sisson referenced comments by Emily Donovan (shown below), a leader within the Clean Cape Fear grassroots community action group, who once proclaimed: “Churches in Brunswick County baptize their babies in PFAS-contaminated tap water.”

 

Kerri Allen of the North Carolina Coastal Federation told Sisson: “The Cape Fear River has a long and storied history of just being horribly abused and mistreated. The science is clear that PFAS are present in Cape Fear River sediments, and dredging has the potential to mobilize that contamination,” Allen said.

 

The proposed project, which would unearth 35 million cubic yards of soil and sand, could really stir up an environmental nightmare, unsettling the contaminated sediments, thereby worsening the region’s substantial PFAS problem. Some fear it’s an “environmental train wreck” waiting to happen.

Sisson said: “What’s unfolding on the Cape Fear is a preview of a much larger regulatory ‘blind spot’ in USACE’s national mission and the broader maritime economy.”

He said: “As scientists race to better understand the interplay of PFAS, salinity and sediment, there’s no effort by the Corps to factor the risk of these chemicals into its key mission of maintaining about 12,000 miles of inland and intracoastal waterways, 13,000 miles of coastal waterways, and 400 ports, harbors and turning basins.”

Burdette commented: “PFAS is a pretty big deal. This area has been contaminated for roughly 50 years. You should really do a lot of modeling and sampling.”

“Deepening a channel can allow tides and storm surges to push farther upriver, bringing salt water with them,” Sisson wrote. “Unearthing the sides of the Cape Fear will not only disturb ecosystems, it will likely also drive the salt-water intrusion even farther upriver.”

The likely result would be an expansion of the “‘ghost forests’ – clusters of native bald cypress trees that have been weakened, warped and ruined by salinity,” he said.

Brayton Willis of Leland, N.C., a retired senior project manager with USACE, now heads up the North Carolina Gullah Geechee Heritage Trail, which traverses both sides of the Cape Fear River between Wilmington and Southport.

He’s so passionate about protecting the environment that he’s written a poem, “Ghost Trees of the Cape Fear River,” published in 2023. You can access it at CoastalReview.org.

 

As a guest columnist for the Coastal Review, a news service provided by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Willis offered comments about the Wilmington Harbor Navigation Improvement Project:

“It is our river, yet it has been treated as a stepchild compared to other, less critical economic priorities. Standard economic models often overlook the real financial value of natural resources and ecological systems like those on the lower Cape Fear River.”

“Since nature’s ‘goods and services,’ such as clean air, fresh water and fully functioning floodplains and wetlands, are often considered free, they are becoming overused and undervalued,” Willis wrote.

“…The degradation of our environment directly affects our citizens, taxpayers and the species that depend on healthy ecosystems. As the Corps prepares its final EIS, it is essential to find more sustainable alternatives than digging us into a deeper hole” from which we can’t escape.

“If not for us, then how about our kids, grandchildren and their grandchildren?”

Ramona McGee of the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill believes “enough is enough.”

 

She said: “The Lower Cape Fear is already threatened by sea level rise and industrial pollution. We shouldn’t be further damaging this special place with an unnecessary and costly project.”

“We are grateful that the Division of Coastal Management is standing up for North Carolina’s coastal resources and communities,” McGee said.