Topsail Beach Nourishment
By Trista Talton
Topsail Beach commissioners are making a last ditch effort to get oceanfront property owners to sign easements, or else. More than 100 property owners can expect to receive calls from commissioners between now and Oct. 13 encouraging them to turn in easements the town mailed out in the summer. The town has not received 185 of 410 letters, which were due Aug. 6.
Property owners who don’t sign the dotted line by Oct. 13 could receive a letter of intent explaining the town will take legal action to obtain temporary easements. Property owners who fail to turn in an easement within 30 days of that notice will be taken to court.
Commissioners are expected to make a final decision on whether to send out letters of intent during their Oct. 13 meeting.
The easements are essential to the town’s proposed interim beach nourishment project because they give workers and their equipment permission to go onto private property.
In a special meeting Tuesday, town officials said they want dredging to begin Dec. 1. To meet that deadline, the town must be ready to accept bids no later than Nov. 15.
Commissioners agreed they don’t want to pursue legal recourse to obtain easements, a move that could cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.
“I think it’s important to know if people are being lackadaisical or if they just don’t understand it,” Commissioner Grier Fleischhauer said of why some property owners have yet to sign easements. “We need to make sure they understand the cost to the town.”
The fact that homeowners and, for that matter, commissioners, do not have answers to pertinent questions about the proposed project may be one reason property owners are hesitant to sign easements, commissioners said. One such question: Will the town have to rebuild its 23 beach accesses?
“In the next month we’ll have almost all of the information,” Fleischhauer said.
Commissioner Julian Bone said the town plans to send out bid packages to four dredging companies to pump 930,000 cubic yards of sand onto the beach.
“We’re 99 percent sure the project will stay under $6 million,” he said.
Sand will be pumped from Topsail Sound and the spoil islands onto the beach.
Topsail Erosion and Sea Level Rise
