It is good news for all that the Bonner Bridge is open again.
The Dec. 3 decision by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to close the bridge without any warning caused significant hardship to residents and businesses on Hatteras Island.
But politicians have focused their rhetoric on legal challenges to a decision that would rebuild the bridge at the same vulnerable location without a plan for the increasingly frequent and extended closures of N.C. 12 south of the bridge.
It's not the first time that politics clouded this issue.
We first became involved in 2003 in response to requests from within NCDOT to help defend its decision to build a causeway through Pamlico Sound that avoided the high-erosion areas that block access.
NCDOT's decision that this solution was the most dependable transportation - and environmentally preferred - option had unanimous support among all federal and state agencies involved in the project.
Local politicians blocked the consensus on a soundside bridge, preferring instead to spend less money to replace Bonner Bridge at its current location.
For years, NCDOT tried to develop a plan for the N.C. 12 access route but failed to do so.
In 2011, NCDOT decided to just replace the bridge, with no plan for N.C. 12 through the eroding wildlife refuge.
The fallacy of this shortsighted political decision became apparent in 2011, when Hurricane Irene created two new inlets and washed out large sections of N.C. 12, cutting off the bridge for weeks.
The same thing happened with Sandy in 2012, and the road was closed for months.
If NCDOT had moved forward with its 2003 plan, the replacement bridge would have opened in 2010. Access to Hatteras Island would not have been disrupted for the third year in a row by the failures along N.C. 12 and NCDOT's recent closure.
Now NCDOT contends a Pamlico Sound bridge is unaffordable. But its estimates on the cost of a longer bridge vary wildly: $260 million in 2003, up to $1.44 billion in 2007, and as low as $569 million and as high as $1.1 billion in 2012. NCDOT has refused our repeated requests for an independent cost assessment.
Meanwhile, NCDOT has proposed about $450 million in short-term measures to try to keep N.C. 12 open to the replacement bridge: a one-time sand dump, then elevating two stretches of highway over high-erosion areas. NCDOT plans to let the elevated highway erode into the ocean. NCDOT estimates the ultimate price for elevating and attempting to maintain N.C. 12 would be well more than $1 billion.
NCDOT's piecemeal approach does nothing to address predicted new inlets and guarantee access. No fund is in place for the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be needed to maintain this futile attempt to fight the ocean. And no money set aside to compensate the future economic losses each time N.C. 12 fails.
Even NCDOT's short-term measures are nearing its staff estimate of $569 million for a Pamlico Sound bridge - a long-term solution.
The recent rhetoric from the McCrory administration and legislative leaders is surprising given their past lack of concern.
Last year, the General Assembly, at the behest of the McCrory administration, enacted legislation that specifically makes this stretch of N.C. 12 completely ineligible for funding as a statewide transportation priority. We lobbied to amend this legislation to make N.C. 12 a state funding priority and safe and dependable access a reality.
A soundside bridge is a better investment for taxpayers, the environment and the future of Hatteras Island.
The pending lawsuit asks that NCDOT be required to provide a complete plan for transportation to and from the island - not just a bridge with no access - which is both a legal requirement and a sensible one.
Derb Carter is the director of the North Carolina offices of the Southern Environmental Law Center. Email: dcarter@selcnc.org.