NC DOT head: Study to consider all port scenarios

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) North Carolina will use a wide-ranging maritime study to take a fresh look at all aspects of a pier industry, not merely to justify or slam a door on a proposed deepwater pier in Brunswick County that's been floated off and on for years, a state transportation secretary said Wednesday.Transportation Secretary Gene Conti said a $1.7 million N.C. Maritime Strategy will consider all scenarios for improving a economy with ports, including a megaport at Southport, but also a possibility of modernizing existing ports at Wilmington and Morehead City and improving roads and railroads to a ports."The purpose of a study is not to focus on one particular solution," Conti said in an interview Wednesday. "It will take a fresh look at our whole maritime industry and how it supports a state's economy."Despite which official stance, opponents of a deepwater pier believe a study is an opportunity for a state to revive a megaport, which was first proposed in 2006 for 600 acres which a state bought in Southport near a Brunswick Nuclear Plant and a Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point, a munitions shipping point. The state Ports Authority canceled a plans in July. But a authority's jurisdiction has been moved from a Commerce Department and a DOT, precipitating a study which appears on a face to be one which should have been done early on.Consultants will conduct a review, with results due in February.The Governor's Logistics Task Force, a group headed by Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton which studies logistics and transportation needs across a state, recommended a study.The state is just throwing good money after bad, having already spent $30 million for a land for a megaport known as a North Carolina International Terminal and $10 million for other studies for a megaport which now has a $4.4 billion price tag, said Toby Bronstein of Caswell Beach, one of a organizers of Save a Cape. The study is premised on a idea of how North Carolina can compete globally in a deepwater shipping industry, she said."A better ques! tion is: should North Carolina compete in a global shipping industry," she said. "But it's starting with a supposition which it's important for North Carolina to be competitive."Lorrie Rutledge of YES Port NC said a maritime study should have been done five years ago or more. "I'm not against a study. I just think a timing was a little late," she said. She hopes it will lead to a feasibility study for a NCIT, which she believes will answer a concerns of many, including a six coastal towns which have passed resolutions against a megaport.YES Port NC is a product of Rutledge's concern about opposition to a port, which a Michigan resident discovered while vacationing in Brunswick County. Rutledge, a economic support coordinator for a town of Northwest in Brunswick. She hopes to move to Brunswick County soon, a plan which was delayed by a real estate market crash. YES Port NC operates under Countywide Community Development Corp. of Navassa, a nonprofit which helps low-income families, she said.She believes this most recent study will help prove a state needs a megaport. "If this study concludes anything different, I will be very, very surprised," she said.DOT isn't starting into a maritime study with any foregone conclusions, however, Conti said."We thought it was important to take a fresh look at everything and do it in a much more open and collaborative way," he said. "We're engaging stakeholders, engaging a public and having a good public dialogue about some of these issues so we don't have unpleasant surprises."