Any taxpayer who has ever vacationed at Cape Hatteras on North Carolina's famed Outer Banks has driven over the bridge at Oregon Inlet — a gap between Pea and Bodie islands just south of Kitty Hawk.

Now Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and the Corps of Engineers want taxpayers to pay $108 million for a project that would play havoc with nature on the Outer Banks — a project that has been repeatedly shot down in Congress for three decades as a wasteful boondoggle.

The latest chapter in this debacle started about a month ago. Senator Helms attached a legislative “rider” to the disaster relief money for flood victims in North Carolina.

The rider would have removed a key barrier to the construction of two mile-long stone jetties on either side of Oregon Inlet. The jetties would be built on land currently owned by the U.S. Department of the Interior, which opposes them. Helms' rider would transfer the land to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which loves the project.

The project is meant to make it easier for a small fishing fleet to get through the gap between the islands and out to the ocean. But scientists and economists have determined that the jetties are economically unjustified and would harm the environment.

In fact, the Corps' own economic studies of the project have been questioned. The Office of Management and Budget in 1988 appointed an independent expert who showed that the project's costs far outweighed its benefits.

In the latest economic study of the project, Dr. Richard Selden of the University of Virginia performed an independent review of the Corps study . He found that the project wasn't economically viable.

Four North Carolina newspapers have editorialized strongly against the project. But the state's junior Senator, John Edwards (D-NC), has been largely absent on the issue. A decisive position by Senator Edwards could likely have stopped the rider a month ago. Instead his inaction played a key role in keeping the rider alive.

It appears Senator Helms' Oregon Inlet rider has had a temporary setback and been removed from the flood relief bill.  However, sources say there will be language in the bill that promises to deal with the jetties later this year.

These unneeded jetties are a massive boondoggle. As long as Senator Helms pushes this pork and Senator Edwards remains AWOL, the rest of Congress will have to rescue taxpayers and the Outer Banks.

For more information, please contact Steve Ellis at (202) 546-8500 x126 or steve [at] taxpayer.net

June 29, 2000