An Inventory of the Wetlands Impacted by the U.S. Navy's Proposed OLF Site in Gates County, North Carolina

Abstract

The US Navy has proposed construction of an Outlying Landing Field (OLF) for carrier-landing practice, at one of five potential sites in North Carolina and Virginia. The proposed Sandbanks site in Gates County, NC is opposed by the Citizens Against OLF, who asked the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic to evaluate possible damages to the area by drafting an Environmental Impact Statement. This project will contribute to that EIS by evaluating the site’s hydrology and wetlands using GIS analysis. Results of examinations of the wetlands’ ecosystem services indicate large areas of important wetlands on and near the site. The individual results (buffering capacity, runoff estimates, and habitat quality) are integrated into a single product that can be compared to the North Carolina Coastal Region Evaluation of Wetland Significance (NC CREWS). This comparison shows a larger area of high significance wetlands in the NC CREWS rating due to depth of the analysis, among other factors. There is ample evidence of high wetland significance at the Gates County site.