This Land, Your Land

National Parks Traveler reported this week about a state grant that will go toward rehabilitating a popular trail on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The $75,000 grant from the North Carolina Recreation Trails Program will go to the Watauga County Tourism Development Authority to fix a two-mile, badly eroded portion of the Boone Fork Trail at Julian Price Memorial Park, the report says. Boone Fork is also part of the Section 13 of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail between the Grandfather Mountain area and Blowing Rock.

With the state money and $18,750 of its own, the tourism group plans to rebuild part of the Boone Fork Trail and construct a dedicated MST trailhead parking area, an information kiosk, and 700 feet of new trail adjacent to the Tanawha Trail, another portion of MST Section 13.

Kurt Repanshek of National Parks Traveler says various state and federal laws prevent Cape Hatteras National Seashore from effectively dealing with a flooding problem caused by the island park's high water table.

Cyndy Holda, the seashore's spokesman, told Repanshek that heavy rains this fall, including a drenching from Hurricane Irene, left standing water surrounding portions of Lighthouse Road near the Cape Point Campground, in the campground itself and at beach Ramp 44 (National Parks Traveler has photos). Several hundred yards of the eastern end of the road have been under 6-12 inches of standing water for weeks, she said.

Drainage ditches in the park predate the Wetlands Protection Act and other modern environmental laws, and when the National Park Service trenched some of the ditches in 2004, the North Carolina Division of Water Quality said they were in violation of state laws that prohibit draining wetlands, Holda said.

Cape Hatteras staff members will begin work this winter on an environmental impact statement about possible improvements to fix the problem, such as raising Lighthouse Road and constructing a proper drainage system underneath it, according to the report.