A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to direct the department of environment and natural resources to pursue various strategies to ensure that the state's shallow draft navigation channels are safe and navigable.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  For purposes of this act, the following definitions apply:
(1)	"Department" means the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
(2)	"Corps" means the United States Army Corps of Engineers.
(3)	"Shallow draft navigation channel" means (i) a waterway connection with a maximum depth of 16 feet between the Atlantic Ocean and a bay or the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, (ii) a river entrance to the Atlantic Ocean through which tidal and other currents flow, or (iii) other interior coastal waterways. "Shallow draft navigation channel" includes the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and its side channels, Beaufort Harbor, Bogue Inlet, Carolina Beach Inlet, the channel from Back Sound to Lookout Back, channels connected to federal navigation channels, Lockwoods Folly River, Manteo/Shallowbag Bay, including Oregon Inlet, Masonboro Inlet, New River, New Topsail Inlet, Rodanthe, Rollinson, Shallotte River, Silver Lake Harbor, and the waterway connecting Pamlico Sound and Beaufort Harbor.
SECTION 2.  The Department shall take all of the following steps in order to ensure that the State's shallow draft navigation channels are safe and navigable:
(1)	The Department shall utilize long-term agreements with Corps to maintain the dredging of the State's shallow draft navigation channels to depths authorized on the date this act becomes law.
(2)	The Department shall assist local governments in their pursuit of general permit authorizations from the Corps to allow the local governments to dredge shallow draft navigation channels to depths and according to project designs authorized on the date this act becomes law.
(3)	The Department shall assist local governments in their pursuit of individual permits under the State Coastal Area Management Act permits issued by the Corps to allow the dredging of shallow draft navigation channels to depths greater than authorized on the date this act becomes law and to allow the placement of dredged materials on beaches.
SECTION 3.  This act is effective when it becomes law.