News

A draft plan of flooding resilience projects throughout the Tar-Pamlico watershed has been released, and the state wants the public’s input on it.

“They’ve basically laid out an action strategy, determined where there’s increased risk and flooding, with an overview of where flooding currently happens,” said Pamlico-Tar Riverkeeper Katey Zimmerman. “It also lists priority actions or projects that should be prioritized for funding by the General Assembly and other future funding opportunities.”

The Tar-Pamlico River Basin Action Strategy is part of the North Carolina Flood Resiliency Blueprint, a large, multiyear project coordinated by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for North Carolina’s 17 major river basins. The effort to attain stakeholder engagement landed Katey on the Tar-Pamlico Flooding Resiliency Blueprint advisory group last year and now the public is being asked to weigh in on the projects prioritized in the draft.

“They prioritize projects based on a benefits-versus-costs analysis that they created, which is different than the one FEMA has,” Katey said. “This one is rated on priorities outlined by the advisory group. Some of those things that weight the analysis are the level of protection that a proposed action will provide, environmental benefits, the overall cost of the project, risk of failure and maintenance requirements.”

Some of those projects include levees in Rocky Mount, Princeville, the City of Greenville and Hyde County; others are from the Jack’s Creek Restoration plan that Sound Rivers, the Mid-East Commission and the City of Washington partnered on and had applied for funding through an EPA grant in early 2025, only to have that funding eliminated through federal cuts.

“These are the big things in the draft, and we encourage people to review and give any feedback on them that they see fit,” Katey said. “We really value the time and work that was spent by DEQ in putting this together and thinking about long-term resiliency planning. It’s very important, and our state legislature really should continue to fund it.”

View the draft Tar-Pamlico River Basin Action Strategy here.

Give your feedback here!

The deadline to comment is July 27.