Story and photos by Drew Wayland
MANTEO, N.C. — Pablo Hernandez takes the wheel of the construction ATV and punches the gas. Suddenly he and I are speeding down the deserted Bonner Bridge: a precarious, three mile stretch of North Carolina Highway 12 that connects the two biggest islands of the Outer Banks. We hit 20, 30, then 40 miles per hour, and Hernandez is shouting over the roaring wind about the complexities of tearing this structure apart. The 50-year-old bridge is scheduled for demolition in just two days time, and its successor, the shiny new Basnight Bridge, towers 70 feet in the air to our right. Below us is one of the most fragile ecosystems in America.
We stop at the top of what he calls the “high-rise,” the huge hump in the middle of the bridge that lets sea vessels pass beneath. There’s going to be a storm later in the day, so the wind is whipping so hard it’s difficult to stand in place. Hernandez holds out his hand toward the Atlantic.
“Fifteen, 17 maybe,” he says. He’s talking about the wind speeds. “I don’t know if they’ll be able to work today if it keeps going like this.”
Pablo is the proud father of the demolition operation, and as N.C. Department of Transportation resident engineer, he has overseen hundreds of projects on these islands. This one in particular, a long-standing local issue known as the Bonner Bridge Replacement Project, has been stewing for two decades.
“This one is finally almost over,” he says, “but to be honest with you this is probably going to be the hardest part.” The one thing that Hernandez emphasized above all others during my trip to Oregon Inlet was the challenges that this particular demolition presented. Safety issues, structural complexities, and, perhaps most urgently, environmental concerns.
“We needed to move hundreds of tons of concrete and steel from here,” he says, gesturing to the acres of wetlands that the bridge passes over, “and we needed to get it pretty much anywhere else.”
Hernandez, a self-admitted sucker for an efficient solution, helped facilitate a partnership that would go beyond preserving the sensitive environment of the islands. He and the N.C. DOT aimed to use the bridge to bring new life to the North Carolina coast.
“Everything we’re standing on is going to be on the bottom of the ocean pretty soon,” he says.
The first miles of the old Bonner and the new Marc Basnight Bridges run over some of North America’s most fragile wetlands. The wetlands keep both Hatteras and Bodie islands from eroding.
In March 2017, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries came to the N.C. DOT with a unique proposal. Instead of selling off the excess concrete to private companies or individuals, it asked Hernandez to give the materials to the Marine Fisheries. It would ship them off-site to designated locations up to 50 miles off of the coast, and use them as building blocks for what are known as artificial reefs. The Marine Fisheries’ solution checked all of Hernandez’ boxes: material moved off-site, environment preserved, and the public kept safe. But transporting over 30,000 tons of bridge without disturbing the fragile wetlands below will be no easy task.
“This is a project that’s all about the little details,” he says. “There’s no room for error when you’re working with over-water equipment, […] even less when it’s out here. ”
Hernandez understands how important preserving and assisting the environment is, especially in the Outer Banks. Growing up in Apex, North Carolina, he visited the quiet island chain nearly every year, and in the three decades since, dozens of oceanfront properties have succumbed to the ocean as victims of erosion and natural island migration. The Outer Banks are long, glorified sandbars thrust miles out into the Atlantic where they are at the mercy of colossal storms and open-ocean weather patterns. In some places the islands are less than 100 meters across. They are highly developed today, and increased human activity has put these fragile beaches and swamps at risk.
Wetlands and sand dunes protect the sandy shores from eroding away, but only under normal conditions. As climate change accelerates and the eastern United States faces more severe storms, the survival of these wetlands is paramount. Choking the grasses with concrete dust or driving away nesting birds and fish with excessive noise could destabilize the ecosystem. Hernandez admits that any demolition job comes with environmental costs, even when all regulations are followed. That’s why the artificial reefs connection is so important.
“Mid-Atlantic coastal reefs don’t look like the tropical coral reefs that you see most of the time,” said Jordan Byrum, the Artificial Reefs Coordinator for the Division of Marine Fisheries. “They’re sanctuaries for oysters and clams, lots of shellfish and tuna. They’re hunting grounds for mackerel and tarpon […] and they’re disappearing.”
The artificial reefs are located strategically in regions of the ocean that once supported abundant marine life and are now much quieter. The loss of habitat is attributed to overfishing and rising ocean temperatures that have traumatized the food chain. Byrum believes that introducing huge, long-lasting structures to these areas may start to bring life back.
“It starts with little stuff, plants and algae and smaller bottom-feeders,” Byrum says, “but the oysters and the big fish come eventually.”
The Division of Marine Fisheries’ strategy for building artificial reefs is usually more nuanced than what it’s doing with the Bonner Bridge. Typically concrete slabs are stitched together with steel poles, and pieces of natural rock are embedded to create texture and layering for the animals, more like what they’re used to. But the bridge pieces will be dumped as they are, with no modification.
“Once it’s on the barge, there’s only really one way off,” Hernandez says. He points downward. “Straight to the bottom.”
One of the concrete barges is loaded as workers prepare to ship the materials out to sea for use in the Division of Marine Fisheries’ artificial reefs.
To Hernandez, that’s the easy part. He’s focused on the minutiae of the job, including tough problems like removing the parts of the bridge that sit atop the wetlands and getting the floating cranes from the east side of the bridge to the west.
When I first stepped into his office in the woods on Roanoke Island, he was poring over the spreadsheets that documented minute-by-minute the carbon output of the tug boats being used to haul the barges around the demolition site. Every minute, he says, every dollar, and every person involved is deserving of his attention.
“For this whole stretch, we’re going to have to be really strategic,” he says, referring to the one-third section of the bridge that sits overtop the wetlands. “It’s a top-down approach, where the crane sits on stilts and lifts the concrete pieces out from under itself.”
Though it may be difficult to visualize, it’s even more difficult to carry out. Hernandez and the DOT have had to build out an elaborate set of scaffolding that wraps around the bridge, on top of which sits a 90-foot crane. This type of demolition isn’t as swift as others, moving at a pace of just 30 yards per month. It will take almost a year for it to be complete, together with constant hosing down of the concrete for dust management.
After everything is said and done, and the Bonner Bridge has found its final resting place among the fish, there will still be something for locals and tourists to remember it by. A half mile of the existing bridge is being preserved and converted into a fishing pier (which, if you ask the locals, is what it was used for just as much as it was ever driven on). That portion of the project will be complete by the end of the summer.
On our way back from the demolition site, Hernandez stressed that although he’s lived in a coastal paradise for 20 years, it’s no vacation.
“You wake up every day and you still have bills to pay, laundry to do. You still have to go to work, and out here it’s not easy.” Many days, he says, the salty air that he moved to the Outer Banks for comes in brutal winds and stormy days that make working outdoors a grueling challenge. I asked him if it was worth it.
“Oh yeah,” he says, “100 percent.” He’s looking at the storm that’s coming in over the Pamlico Sound. “This whole area, the Outer Banks, [Cape Hatteras National Seashore], and Roanoke is one of the most interesting places in the country to work with infrastructure.”
Hernandez knows that things are changing quickly in the climate of these islands, and he says there’s no greater duty than protecting them.
“This place is a paradise, as much as day-to-day life goes on,” he says. “If it’s all underwater there’s nothing left to enjoy […] and I think that’s why we’re so careful.”
The Oregon Inlet will be largely free of construction equipment by the end of 2019, a sight that locals haven’t seen in more than three years. It’s also a sight sure to make Hernandez smile. He expects that the millions of fish, birds and other marine life that will find solace in their new concrete homes to be pleased as well.
