NCDOT was scheduled to share a preliminary draft design for the US 64 expansion project with East Lake and Alligator Communities on Monday and Tuesday, August 19 and 20.

The East Lake meeting in Dare County started at 6:30 p.m. at the village’s community center on Monday night. Today, the presentation will start at the same time at St. John’s Baptist Church in Alligator in Tyrrell County.

The two communities are the ones most affected by the US 64 project, which will widen the 27.3 mile segment of US 64 from Columbia in Tyrrell County to the intersection with US 264 in Dare County. The project will also replace the Lindsay C. Warren Bridge over the Alligator River.

The design is a work in progress, reported Ted Devens with NCDOT. The meetings offer an opportunity for community members to make timely comments on the draft design.

In March 2013, the project’s merger team selected a Least Environmental Damaging Alternative. The merger team brings together representatives of all federal and state permitting and commenting agencies for the project. At the meeting, the merger team’s decision was scheduled for presentation.

“Here is the good news for Columbia folks. Right where the project starts on the east side of Columbia, there is a neighborhood on the south side and there is a home on the north side of the road. It was not a difficult decision and it was actually less wetlands to widen up to the north side as we are coming up out of Columbia,” said Devens.

Devens said that the widening is taking place in the Alligator Community at residents’ requests.
“Realizing that there are a number of their homes on the north side that they actually asked us to take them,” he stated.
Devens cited rising sea levels, drainage issues in the community, and possible compensation as some of the reasons for citizens asking for their homes to be moved.
Opponents in 2012 disputed the state’s claims about hurricane evacuation times and said the road would cause more harm to animals in the wildlife refuge and a state game preserve by damaging and fragmenting their habitat, which includes thousands of acres of sensitive wetlands.
The Southern Environmental Law Center joined with the Defenders of Wildlife, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Wilderness Society in 2012 in a response to the state’s draft report, saying the U.S. 64 widening project illustrates how the legislature’s intent to establish four-lane highways across the state has taken on a life of its own.

“Just because it’s on the plan, it’s going to get built, without any real need for it,” said Kym Hunter, associate attorney for the environmental law center.

“Our concern is that there are a lot of these roads that aren’t really in the best interests of the state anymore, especially given the state’s current funding abilities,” she said in 2012.

Devens acknowledged the groups’ objections.
“I think there are going to be continuing environmental concerns on this project. It is difficult to do any widening in Eastern North Carolina without hitting wetlands,” he said.
Devens mentioned that the NCDOT was planning to create or restore twice the number of wetlands or more than they will be hitting on the project.
Other concerns included the habitats of the red wolf and red cockaded woodpeckers.
Steps are being taken to lessen the effects the highway might have on their habitat.
“This project does have wildlife crossings in the design,” he said.
The section of the highway between Plymouth and Columbia has sections that gradually rise up and go back down.
“These are actually bridges. They are ten foot high and wildlife actually cross underneath the highway,”  Devens said.