BUXTON, N.C. — For the first time since September 2023, the beach access and a portion of the beach at the end of Old Lighthouse Road are reopening in Buxton.
The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services made the announcement Thursday morning.
“We're just so thrilled and so ecstatic that we finally have our beaches back open," Wendi Munden, a member of the Buxton Civic Association, said.
Munden and the Buxton Civic Association have been waiting for this day for a long time. For more than a year and a half, any visitor trying to use the beach access at the end of Old Lighthouse Road was met with an area closed sign that included a precautionary public health advisory "due to impacts from petroleum contaminated soils likely exposed by beach erosion."
“Buxton Civic Association was formed specifically for this project. When this happened, the community came together and we said, this is unacceptable," Munden said.
The project involves the beach at the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site. The area is home to a decades-old former naval facility, but in the fall of last year, petroleum sheen and infrastructure were heavily present. The Army Corps of Engineers has led cleanup efforts at the location, which accelerated in September 2024.
“The Army Corps of Engineers worked with us. They helped to restore those sites, and they restored the site by removing a lot of that infrastructure and a lot of the heavy contamination to the point where we're not finding any hazardous levels of contamination on the beach in that three-tenths of a mile section," Dave Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said.
To date, the Army Corps of Engineers has done extensive work at the site, including the removal of:
- 4,599 cubic yards of petroleum-impacted soil
- 99,526 gallons of petroleum-impacted water
- 278,000 pounds of concrete
- 1,153 feet of pipe
- 1,088 feet of metal cable and wire
Locals weren't the only ones excited about the news.
"It was a nice surprise to come out today and see that it was gone," Makayla Beeler, who is visiting the area with her family, said, referencing the area closed sign that was removed to reopen the beach.
The parking lot will stay closed as the Army Corps of Engineers prepares for further testing and dune restoration. The Civic Association is proud how of far the community efforts have come and feel the area is safe.
“We feel very confident that there's no more petroleum or chemical leaks here," Munden said.
In the press release, Dare County HHS said the decision to reopen the beach involved factors including the petroleum removal project, two analyses of the soil, and an investigation of the contaminants by the Coast Guard.
