Tuesday, August 18, 2026
By Outer Banks Voice on August 12, 2026
The quarterly Aug. 13 meeting of the Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) concerning the contamination cleanup at the former Buxton Naval Facility is the first one since April 30, and it precedes a comprehensive sampling at the site slated for this fall.
The meeting will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Cape Hatteras Anglers Club, 47231 Light Plant Road, Buxton. It is open to the public and there will be a 15-minute Q&A session for attendees.
In early June, USACE announced it had completed excavations to remove petroleum-impacted soil from the beach and dunes, as well as sand replacement and seeding at the Buxton Naval Facility. It also reported that during its 2025 Interim Response Cleanup, when it identified a second source of petroleum contamination at the site, it removed approximately 19,000 tons of petroleum-impacted soil and 337,000 gallons of petroleum-impacted water.
According to Savannah District Media Relations Chief Cheri Pritchard, the USACE team has continued to monitor groundwater at the Buxton site since it temporarily wrapped work up there this spring. The comprehensive sampling project coming in the fall will look at the “nature and extent” of any remaining contamination in the soil and groundwater.
The Buxton Naval site, officially known as a Formerly Used Defense Site (FUDS) had been leased from Cape Hatteras National Seashore by the US Navy from 1956 to 1982. Cleanup for the Naval area falls under the provisions of FUDS Act which gives responsibility for restoring the site to the USACE.
For more information, visit the project website Formerly Used Defense Sites/ Buxton Naval Facility.
