§ 113-315.28.  Purposes of Authority.

Through the Authority created by this Article, the State of North Carolina may engage in promoting, developing, constructing, equipping, maintaining and operating one or more marine industrial parks within the State, or within the jurisdiction of the State, and works of internal improvements related to the purposes set forth in this section, including the acquisition or construction, maintenance and operation of watercraft and facilities located at the parks or essential for the proper operation of the parks. The Authority is created as an instrumentality of the State of North Carolina for the accomplishment of the following general purposes:

(1) To develop and improve the Wanchese Marine Industrial Park, and such other marine industrial parks, including inland ports and facilities, as may be deemed feasible for a more expeditious and efficient handling of marine commerce from and to any place or places in the State of North Carolina and other states and foreign countries;

(2) To acquire, construct, equip, maintain, develop and improve the port facilities at the parks and to maintain, develop, and improve the navigability of waterways in or adjacent to the parks and those waterways connecting the parks with the channels of commerce of the Atlantic Ocean;

(3) To foster and stimulate the growth of marine-related industries in the State of North Carolina;

(4) Repealed by Session Laws 2013-211, s. 1, effective June 26, 2013.

(5) To accept funds from any counties or cities containing a marine industrial park and to use the same in such manner, within the purposes of said Authority, as shall be stipulated by the funding county or city, and to act as agent or instrumentality of any funding counties or cities in any matter coming within the general purposes of said Authority;

(5a) To encourage and develop the general maritime and marine-related industries and activities at or in the vicinity of the marine industrial parks;

(6) And in general to do and perform any act or function which may tend to be useful toward the development and improvement of marine industrial parks in the State of North Carolina, and to increase the movement of waterborne marine commerce, foreign and domestic, to, through, and from the marine industrial parks.

The enumeration of the above purposes shall not limit or circumscribe the broad objective of developing to the utmost the marine industry possibilities of the State of North Carolina. (1979, c. 459, s. 4; 1993, c. 278, s. 1; 1998-212, s. 15.5(a); 2013-211, s. 1.)