By Scott Harper The Virginian-Pilot May 12, 2012 TANGIER ISLAND From the air, this fishing outpost in the middle of the ChesapeakeBay for centuries resembled a giant fishing hook, a curved barbcompleting the picture on the northern tail of the island. But no more. The barb is gone, swallowed by a rising Bay andfast-eroding land. Now, Tangier Island just looks like a big oval teardrop. Locals here worry that the one-two punch of higher sea levels andsinking land will doom them, too, drowning their homes and way oflife, along with some 400 years of Virginia history and culture. In the 1980s, a seawall of boulders was erected along a stretch ofthe western shore of the island, and it has succeeded in keeping asmall airport and the town's sewage-treatment plant from being lostto the Bay. But attempts to expand the wall, or install other barrierselsewhere, have never been completed. And today, as water creepsunder homes during even normal daily tides, islanders are anxiousthat, without help soon, they might be witnessing the slow death ofTangier Island. The same can be said of nearby Saxis, a marshy island and fishingmecca jutting into the Bay just off the mainland of Accomack Countyon the Eastern Shore. The mayor of Saxis lobbied for years forfunding to build protective breakwaters along the vulnerablewestern coast. But help never arrived. And last year, the project lost itschampion when Mayor Charles Tull died. Earlier this week, as part of Gov. Bob McDonnell's dispatching oftop deputies to the remote corners of the state for a listeningtour, Secretary of Natural Resources Doug Domenech flew to TangierIsland to see whether the administration could do anything to speeda bureaucratic process that has dragged on for years. The Tangier mayor, along with another town council member andseveral commercial fishermen, knew just where to take Domenech - tothe western opening of the town's harbor, which cuts across theisland and is the lifeblood of the local fishing trade. Mayor James "Ooker" Esk-ridge, wearing jeans and anIsraeli Defense Force T-shirt, explained to Domenech that without astone jetty to shelter the harbor mouth, storm surges and heavytides would continue to swamp fishing boats, docks and townshoreline, as well as smash waterfront shacks on stilts wherecoveted soft-shell crabs are grown to market size. The jetty project was approved by the Army Corps of Engineers in1996 and is expected to cost $3.6 million. But it remains undone. Asked whether erosion rates are getting worse, Eskridge justshrugged. "I don't know if it's increased," he said, "but whenit gets to your doorstep, you notice it and figure you better dosomething about it pretty darned quick." Tom Lochen has been working for 18 years as a project manager forthe Norfolk district of the Army Corps of Engineers. Part of hisjob has been to protect Tangier Island from erosion, sea-level riseand subsidence - the technical term for sinking land. In the latest study of the problem, Lochen said, scientistsdetermined that the island is losing about 16 feet of land a yearon the western side and about 3 feet a year on the east. Those rates are comparable to what international media frequentlydescribe in warning that several island states in the Pacific andIndian oceans are poised to go underwater and become the firstvictims of rising sea levels caused by climate change. TangierIsland, however, does not get such press coverage. Lochen said tidal waters have recently penetrated a natural barrierof marshes on the northern end of the island, known locally as TheUppards. The area used to be inhabited but, facing frequentflooding and fading shoreline, it has been empty for years, itsresidents fleeing southward to the town center or off the islandaltogether. The Army Corps says it can probably patch the breach with sandcollected from the next dredging project of navigational channelsleading into Tangier's harbor, Lochen said. But that dredging islikely years away. Some scientists suggest that spending millions of dollars to defendthe island would be a waste of money and energy, arguing that nomatter what devices are installed, Mother Nature eventually willoverwhelm human technology. Other island residents in the Bay havehad to flee rising waters in the past, they say, so why not letnature run it course? Coastal engineers are not so sure. They note how the Tangierseawall has stopped land loss on the western shore for years andsay that, if built correctly and maintained, similar structures cando the same. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, an environmental group that ownsmuch of an island adjacent to Tangier called Port Isobel, justerected a series of breakwaters to shield the eastern entrance toits property. Mary Tod Winchester, a foundation vice president, said the grouplooked 30 years into the future and thought the breakwaters wouldwork at least that long against the crush of sea-level rise. Winchester said she is "absolutely concerned" that,without similar help for Tangier, Port Isobel might not have afuture neighbor. Last summer, U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell, a Virginia Beach Republicanwhose district includes Tangier Island, suggested sinking severaldonated barges along the island to act as breakwaters against wavesand storms. The plan, however, has quietly faded. Although Rigell said last summer that he hoped to set barges inplace within a month or so, the town has not yet applied forgovernment permits, according to the Corps of Engineers. And thecompany that was supposed to donate the barges, Bay BridgeEnterprises, has closed its salvage yard in Hampton Roads and movedto Texas. A more realistic plan of building a series of breakwaters on thenorthern end of Tangier, to protect the Uppards, gained favor withthe Corps and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, whichstudied the issue in depth. However, when the Corps went to town leaders to ask for their sharein paying for studies to keep the project going, Lochen said, thelocals said they simply could not afford it. Tangier Island has a shrinking tax base - the population today isabout 450, down from 600 in the 2000 census - and town leadersalready must pay hefty bills to keep their sewage plant operatingand for other necessities. Funding even a portion of the series ofbreakwaters, costing at least $10 million, is beyond the island'sreach. The state has done its part in recent years by setting aside about$360,000 to finance a share of the proposed jetty project thatwould shield the western mouth of the harbor. But the federal government has not embraced the jetty, insteadchoosing others from a 6-foot-long spreadsheet of similar projectsacross the country, Lochen said. "There's a lot of competition and not as much money to goaround," he said. Lochen said the project might be chosen for funding "this yearor next," but he cautioned against being too optimistic. After Secretary Domenech's day on Tangier Island, which includedlunch at a local eatery where fresh crab cakes and clam fritterswere served, he was asked what the McDonnell administration woulddo next for the sinking outpost. Domenech said he hoped to get the governor personally involved andto apply political pressure on the Corps and Congress to move thejetty project up the priority list. "Maybe we can get something done," he said. Scott Harper, 757-446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com. We are high quality suppliers, our products such as USB Desk Fan Manufacturer , Led Rechargeable Torch for oversee buyer. To know more, please visits Portable Emergency Charger.
Related Articles -
USB Desk Fan Manufacturer, Led Rechargeable Torch,
|