Virginia Eastern Shore residents weigh in on sea level rise impacts

Accomack residents weighed in recently about the impact sea level rise is having on their lives.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia lies in one of the nation's most vulnerable coastal regions, where scientists say sea levels are rising at three to four times the global average and storms are intensifying.

Some 33 miles of roads, mostly in northern Accomack, could be permanently flooded sometime between 2025 and 2050 with one foot of sea level rise — and 25 percent of all roads could be impassable as soon as 2090, according to a 2015 study.

Seven communities could be inaccessible by road as soon as 2025, according to the report by the Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission.

That vulnerability makes the Shore a good place for scientists to study ways nature-based solutions can help communities be resilient in the face of climate change.

"We have one of the most studied coastal systems in the world," said Jill Bieri, director of The Nature Conservancy's Virginia Coast Reserve.

Monday's discussion in the seaside town of Wachapreague, sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, was an invitation to share how lives are being impacted by sea level rise.

Residents also heard from Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission and Nature Conservancy staff about measures being taken to plan for and respond to climate change.

A similar discussion took place Tuesday in Craddockville with residents from the Chesapeake Bay side of the Eastern Shore.

"Tonight is about you and us listening to you," said Bieri. 

"Resiliency is very, very important in protecting our land for many, many reasons," said Accomack Board of Supervisors Chairman Donald L. Hart Jr.

"We were successful in getting it in our comprehensive plan, and I'm very happy about that — but we need to do more, and that's why I'm here, to see what else the county can do so we can support not only Wachapreague, but the whole Shore," Hart said.

Bieri asked how residents are seeing their community change as water levels rise and flooding increases.

"We have been here in Locustville for 45 years now, and the change — the dynamic of the upper end of the estuary — has been enormous," said George Reiger, an outdoors writer who was conservation editor and columnist for Field & Stream magazine for more than 30 years.

When the Reigers arrived, muskrats built their homes in the marsh, where there were freshwater plants the animals preferred — "but we don't have muskrat houses out in the marsh anymore, because those plants don't exist," he said, adding, "The sea level rise has been going on a lot longer than our current interest in it — and it has made the whole upper area of the marsh, which used to be saline at high tide, into a full 24-hour type of situation."

He talked about other changes, saying, "I don't see any solution, so long as the ocean continues to rise."

Bieri asked about changes in their daily lives — "maybe how you are doing something different, based on changes in flooding or sea level rise."

Some said they now take an alternate route to their destination depending upon the tides.

During the Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore bicycle tour this year, bicyclists rode through six inches of floodwater on roads in areas near Locustville, Sandra Beerends said.

Brooke Layton spoke about past attempts to develop nearby Cedar Island, saying he still owns a parcel there and pays taxes on it, "a dollar a year — and it's probably 50 yards out in the ocean."

Climate change is affecting businesses, according to one speaker.

"I would say there are more times, especially this past year, when I couldn't get to my boat at the town marina and I couldn't get customers to the boat — and that was not during a nor'easter; it was high tides," said Meriwether Payne, owner of an eco-tour business in Wachapreague.

Reiger said getting to the inlet leading to the ocean from Wachapreague to go fishing "is increasingly a tricky business — it changes dynamically from year to year. The inlet hardly exists anymore; Cedar Island is a fragment of what it once was."

Bieri asked how residents feel about the future in the face of changes.

"Are you feeling hopeful? Are you feeling scared?"

"Anxious — when there are storms coming in and you have seaside property," Barbara Reiger said.

Another said he is hopeful because he sees organizations like The Nature Conservancy and others addressing problems from climate change through living shorelines and other measures to increase resiliency.

A tool to measure resiliency 

Discussion turned to an online coastal resiliency tool that went live in 2016.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia is one of 22 locations included in the tool, developed by a partnership of 15 organizations headed by The Nature Conservancy.

The project was funded by a National Fish and WIldlife Foundation Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resilience Fund grant awarded to The Nature Conservancy in 2014.

The tool incorporates the best available science and local data to enable communities to visualize risks from sea level rise and storm surge and identify nature-based solutions for enhancing resilience.

The Virginia tool includes an app that shows flooding and sea level under various scenarios and another that shows where future wetlands are likely to be.

Scientists project that by 2025, sea level could rise between .23 and .48 feet in the region, and by 2100, it could rise between 2.29 and 7.07 feet.

BACKGROUND   New coastal resilience tool gives glimpse into future

Mary Margaret Browning, a teacher and Eastern Shore native, said the tool was the subject of the most eye-opening of several teacher workshops she attended sponsored by The Nature Conservancy.

Browning said the first time she saw the tool in action, "I was very anxious."

She noticed "even though my parents' property (on the bayside) will still be high and dry, which is good news, all the roads leading to it, one way or the other, will be flooded, so getting to Route 13 will be a challenge."

Payne said seeing the information as the tool shows it "was a little scary."

Several speakers said the Eastern Shore, population 44,000, is no match for populated low-lying areas like Manhattan and New Orleans when it comes to federal spending on resiliency measures.

Still, there are some less capital-intensive actions that could help here — and which can be done at the local level.

"There are some ideas that are in the works," said Wachapreague Mayor Fred Janci, noting a project to explore use of dredge spoils to build up marsh that protects Wachapreague against storm surge.

"Hopefully with a combination of that and oyster castles, maybe we can raise the level of some of the areas out here. Maybe that would be something that would be more for protection against storm surge more so than sea level rise," he said, adding, "Unfortunately, sea level rise, if anything is done around here, is going around to the north, around to the south."

READ MORE    Cedar Island marsh expansion to protect against sea-level rise in Accomack

Janci predicted of Cedar Island, "I personally don't think that we will ever see any hardening, any extensive hardening, of that coastline that would protect us. The only hardening goes where the money is. At Wallops, of course, where there is a huge investment, there's hardening there."

Funds in Virginia likely will go to places like Hampton Roads, with its large population and military infrastructure, he said, noting, "A lot of money will be spent there to protect those areas — not necessarily the Eastern Shore."

Lloyd Johnston said she is encouraged that agencies in the area — including The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and University of Virginia's Anheuser-Busch Coastal Research Center  — are starting to work together on problems.

READ MORE   'Eight years later, nothing has been done": Accomack residents appeal for flooding help

What's being done: Conservation and nature-based solutions

The Nature Conservancy has been on the Eastern Shore for 50 years, conserving 133,000 acres of barrier islands, marshes and other property.

"We call it the last expanse of wilderness on the East Coast," Bieri said.

The organization also promotes nature-based solutions to protect the shoreline — including living shorelines and restored oyster beds.

Additionally, a push to restore sea grasses has resulted in nearly 9,000 acres of the grasses on the seaside, where for years there were none.

READ   Volunteers create vast, underwater meadows of seagrass on Va. Shore

The grasses support marine life — and also dampen waves and protect nearby shores.

"We're seeing that ecosystem thrive and really help change the way the ecosystem operates down in the lower bays," Bieri said.

The abundance of long-term data scientists have about the Virginia coast can help answer questions about how natural systems respond to climate change, both here and elsewhere, Bieri said.

What's being done: planning

For planners, sea level rise "is one of the most far-reaching problems we face as a region — the solutions are complicated; they are expensive at times — and we are trying to incorporate that resilient way of thinking, and long-term way of thinking, into almost every facet of what we do," said Curt Smith, director of planning at the Accomack-Northampton Planning District Commission.

The commission works with county and town governments on everything from housing and community and economic development to transportation planning and environmental and natural resource planning and management.

It is the only one of Virginia's 21 planning districts with incorporated towns on islands — Saxis, Chincoteague and Tangier — and the only one with critical facilities and economic anchors on islands — NASA Wallops Flight Facility, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and Assateague National Seashore.

The district has the most miles of tidal shoreline of any in the state — and is projected to have the most acreage inundated by sea level rise by 2100.

The Eastern Shore Climate Adaptation Working Group, which ANPDC created in partnership with The Nature Conservancy and others, has met for nearly a decade now to share information and ideas about response to climate change.

Smith noted the Eastern Shore has a history of communities responding to coastal changes — including relocating to less-vulnerable land when necessary.

"The main difference was, they did it on their own dollar," he said.

Along with economic and personal effects of climate change, the history and culture of places like Tangier and Wachapreague "is one of the greatest things at stake as our communities are increasingly put under pressure by increased flooding and long-term sea level rise," Smith said.

"That piece right there scares me the most. I don't want to live in a world without a Wachapreague or a Tangier. I want to find solutions for these communities to last beyond me — and that's a good part of what drives me."

On Twitter @cvvaughnESN

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