Posted on December 10, 2025
SOUTHPORT — A project to deepen the Wilmington Harbor by 5 feet — as proposed by the Port of Wilmington — has caused a stir among environmentalists and local residents. While still in its planning stages, one area municipality wants to make sure its shoreline and resident homes are protected.
The City of Southport held a special workshop Tuesday, Dec. 2, to pass a resolution urging the state and federal governments to ensure the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers more thoroughly consider impacts of the project, include better mitigation efforts into their plans and upkeep management more robustly. The motion passed unanimously, though Alderman Marc Spencer was absent.
The USACE has been conducting an environmental impact study on the Wilmington Harbor 403 Project, which was first introduced in 2019. The project includes the deepening of the Cape Fear River from 42 to around 47 feet to allow for larger model vessels to reach the port, stimulating a potential increase in imports and economic growth.
To do so, USACE has to dredge 16 miles offshore and is expected to extend 38 miles up the Cape Fear River to the Port of Wilmington. In Southport, it will affect areas near Battery Island and Bay Street, already affected by erosion.
The total cost is projected at $1.35 billion, with the state of North Carolina shouldering nearly $340 million, or 25%. The project has not yet been approved for a non-federal sponsor, nor has the Port of Wilmington sent in an application for such. If the benefits that come from the project outweigh or equal the cost and risk of the project, the harbor deepening will receive approval.
The USACE was instructed by Congress, following the port’s feasibility study, to begin an analysis of the project, including economic and environmental costs. Separate from the feasibility study, the USACE also conducts an environmental impact statement to outline the effects on the river, shore and wildlife, mitigation efforts, economic benefits, and more.
USACE’s most recent public review period for the environmental impact statement opened Sept. 19 and closed Nov. 3; the USACE held an initial public comment period in 2023 during the scoping of the project and another in 2024.
However, until Dec. 20 the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has a public comment period for the project, before DEQ makes its decision on the consistency of the environmental impact statement. Comments received will factor into any decision making on DEQ’s part, weighing whether the project follows the agency’s coastal management policies.
“Since there’s another comment period for people within the state of North Carolina that we might be able to influence,” Southport Mayor Rich Alt said, “we wanted to be able to bring everybody up to speed at the same time.”
Currently in draft form, the environmental impact study takes years to complete before it is sent to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works for certification. Once certified, the project may be sent to Congress for official approval, and USACE may begin the design process.
In reality, the project is far from construction.
Some people at the Southport work session were concerned the draft impact statement underplayed environmental concerns and overplayed its economic benefit. However, USACE said impact and mitigation studies aren’t complete yet.
“This commitment to understanding the environmental impacts is absent in this document,” Alderman Karen Mosteller said.
City engineer Bob Jarvis and Mosteller estimated Southport’s shoreline is expected to shrink by 400 feet as a result of the deepening. The project would widen the channel in Southport from around 500 to 600 feet to anywhere between 800 and 1,150 feet, according to the USACE’s EIS.
The board and residents expressed concerns flooding and infrastructure issues would be exacerbated by the project.
“We’re already a community that suffers from nuisance flooding, sunny day flooding, not to mention the storm impacts that we have,” Kerri Allen, coastal advocate and coastal management director from the North Carolina Coastal Federation, said. “And as we all know, storms are becoming more frequent and more severe.”
The USACE’s current draft impact statement estimates the project “does not meaningfully worsen storm surge flooding.” However, Public Affairs Specialist Jedidiah Cayton told Port City Daily that USACE would follow up on the flooding concerns raised at the Southport meeting in its final draft of the EIS, expected next fall.
As well, all concerns issued during the public review period — which was more than 1,500 this fall — will be addressed or taken into consideration in the final draft of the EIS.
Lindsey Addison, the coastal biologist with Audubon Society, feared the project’s effects on local wildlife. USACE’s impact statement outlines mitigation efforts for fish passages, which will be one of the most disrupted environmental factors from the project due to habitat disruptions from dredging.
However, Addison said birds will also see consequences. The Cape Fear is home to 30% of the state of North Carolina’s coastal bird habitats and nesting grounds. There are 10 islands, including Battery Island, along the river that host these birds, like white ibis or pelicans, that could and would be impacted by the heavier loads coming in.
Addison surmised heavier cargo loads would also create rising tides and could destroy remaining natural habitats, beyond just wetlands.
“The waves hit the shoreline, and then they run up the shore above the high tide line, into the dry areas of the marsh or of the sandy islands; and that washes out bird nests,” Addison said. “That happens now, and it will happen more with heavier ships carrying more cargo.”
According to USACE, the vessels that transport cargo are anticipated to have minimal impact on the tidal range. The document states the average and maximum water levels are expected to increase by 0.0032 feet (0.20%), and 0.039 feet (0.63%) respectively.
The draft environmental impact statement does not take the bird islands into consideration currently, but Cayton said that the final draft would include it, and called the Audubon Society one of the project’s stakeholders. One of the USACE’s considerations is using the dredge material to add to the banks of the bird islands.
According to Addison and Bill Cary, a Brooks Pierce lawyer and climate resilience strategist who also served as general counsel of the North Carolina Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, the engineers did not test the roughly 35 million cubic yards of dredge material, and Addison worried the dredging could kick up chemicals like mercury and PFAS, exacerbating the pre-existing issue of contaminated water.
“I would expect there to be an uptick in contaminants, including mercury, arsenic, selenium, hundreds and hundreds of different types of PFAS,” Addison said. “And the DEIS does not address that basically at all. They dismiss it with a sentence because right now PFAS is not a federally regulated substance.”
Cayton acknowledged the lack of federal standards regulating PFAS, but stated the project is not expected to impact drinking water contaminant concentrations.
He added sediment testing of dredge material has a short shelf-life, so the USACE was unable to provide the testing before the most recent draft was published. Sediment testing will be completed during the engineering and design phase of the project should it move forward.
The draft also states the dredge material, Cary pointed out, will be used to combat erosion on other islands by placing the dredge material at their banks. Cary criticized the mention of this plan as a part of mitigation efforts.
“The beneficial use of dredge material is not a mitigation plan. It is a plan whereby the Corps will save cost in disposing of dredge material,” Cary said.
Experts at the Southport workshop also questioned whether the economic impacts of the deepening were complete. While the environmental impact of the project is outlined in the USACE’s draft, the economic benefits are based on national standards, not specific to Wilmington’s.
The forecasted economic growth outlined in the draft is at a 3% increase, and the annual economic benefit with the project’s completion is predicted to be $83,278,000, according to the document. Cary said at the meeting that the USACE’s prediction includes a 25.5% yearly import growth until 2036, which is the starting point of the 50-year analysis period.
He called the projection “inflated.”
“The Corps calculates the national economic benefit, not the benefit to Wilmington or the benefit to North Carolina, but the supposed national economic benefit over the 50-year life of the project,” Cary said.
He alleged other inconsistencies; fleet type projections being one. Among the projected cargo ships is the PPX1, which he stated has been largely out of use in the United States for years.
Cayton said the forecasts are to be viewed “temporally.”
“[The forecasts] change over time based on a complicated set of interacting factors,” he said. “The fleet forecast is based on the existing world-wide fleet of which the US East Coast is a small part.”
PPX1’s are still used at major ports and internationally, and the Port of Wilmington can handle the largest vessels calling on the East Coast.
The deepening of the channel is not meant to bring in more ships with more cargo than is already imported in, but rather fewer and bigger ships with the same amount of cargo, according to the USACE’s environmental impact statement.
“As it stands, this is a $1.3-billion project to bring in the exact same amount of cargo that’s coming in right now,” North Carolina Coastal Federation Coastal Management Director Kerri Allen said.
Attorney Cary added the cost of mitigation and impact would drive the benefit cost ratio down. The BCR is a calculation done by the USACE to determine whether the benefit of the project outweighs the cost and risk. Cary suggested that addressing the inconsistencies he noted would make the cost outweigh the benefits.
Aside from Southport’s resolution, Alderman Lowe Davis also wondered what further actions the board could take. Cary suggested anyone concerned about the project reach out to local legislators, both in the General Assembly and in Washington.
“Normally it’s a waste of time to challenge an EIS because all they do is go back and do it right, and they still do the project,” Cary said. “If they do it right and it drives the project cost up to the point that it’s no longer feasible, the project’s dead.”
He said municipalities could also challenge the final letter report, one of the final steps , before the project is certified and funding is officially approved. The USACE sends the final letter to the federal government to outline proposed plans for the deepening of the river and the findings the USACE gathered from their studies.
“There are multiple fronts on which to fight and none of us should be doing this fight alone,” Cary said.
[Ed. note: The article has been edited to change “PX1” to “PPX1”, to note that the Port of Wilmington can handle the largest vessels calling on the East Coast, and to use the proper term clarified by a spokesperson with North Carolina Ports, “non-federal sponsor.”]
