A River at Risk: The True Cost of Wilmington’s Port Expansion

The Cape Fear River is a lifeline for the 500,000 people who drink from it, for the fisheries and marshes that define coastal North Carolina, and for the migratory birds and threatened species that depend on the barrier islands and tidal creeks at its mouth. As the North Carolina Coastal Federation outlines, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is proposing to fundamentally alter that lifeline with a more than $1.3 billion plan to deepen and widen the channel leading to the Wilmington Port. The Moore Charitable Foundation and its many North Carolina grantees stand against the proposal.