Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Oak Island receives $579K grant for dune infiltration system

The beach town council will receive a grant to help with drainage along Ocean Drive. (Courtesy photo)

OAK ISLAND — The beach town council will receive a grant to help with drainage along Ocean Drive.

Town Manager David Kelly informed leaders at the weekly town council meeting it received the Golden LEAF Foundation grant in the amount of $579,000 to engineer and construct a dune infiltration system that helps mitigate flooding.

Work began last August and will soon reap to help reduce ponding and decrease occurrences of standing water along Ocean Drive, following significant rain events. According to the town, the system worked in neighboring Caswell Beach.

“Additionally, due to its installation under the dunes themselves, the system has increased the width of the area’s secondary dunes, providing additional protection to infrastructure,” a release from the town detailed.

North Carolina legislators appropriated $25 million to the Golden LEAF Foundation to establish the Flood Mitigation Grant Program, which provides up to $2 million per project for local governments.

At the beginning of the month, the Golden LEAF Board awarded more than $5.5 million for eight projects in Ashe, Avery, Brunswick, Craven, Dare, Duplin, Pasquotank, and Perquimans counties.

More about the Dune Infiltration System Project can be found here.


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Shea Carver
Shea Carver
Shea Carver is the editor in chief at Port City Daily. A UNCW alumna, Shea worked in the print media business in Wilmington for 22 years before joining the PCD team in October 2020. She specializes in arts coverage — music, film, literature, theatre — the dining scene, and can often be tapped on where to go, what to do and who to see in Wilmington. When she isn’t hanging with her pup, Shadow Wolf, tending the garden or spinning vinyl, she’s attending concerts and live theater.

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