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Friday, September 5, 2008

Ten Endangered U.S. Beach Towns Named

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Oregon Inlet, Pea Island, North Carolina

Since this 2.5-mile-long (4-kilometer-long) bridge was constructed more than 40 years ago, it's been an engineering headache.

The inlet is migrating south, while the bridge stays rooted in place, forcing continuous dredging.

Elsewhere on the island, the shoreline has receded, threatening other parts of the highway.

Stanley Riggs of the Department of Geological Sciences at East Carolina University likens the fixes to a "human hurricane" pitting engineers against sand.

Residents are now asking for a new bridge, estimated to cost about 300 million U.S. dollars.

—Richard A. Lovett

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—Photograph by David Alan Harvey/NGS