WACHAPREAGUE, Va. (Delmarva Now) -- Two dredging projects on the Eastern Shore of Virginia are among Virginia projects receiving a total of nearly $56 million in new federal funding.
The Eastern Shore projects include $250,000 for maintenance dredging of the Chincoteague Inlet and $1.75 million for work on the Waterway on the Coast of Virginia, including maintenance dredging to provide boats a protected, 90-mile, north-south route connecting harbors on the Eastern Shore to each other and to the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
The latter amount potentially could pay for one to two needed projects on the Waterway on the Coast of Virginia, according to John Joeckel, chairman of a regional committee established in 2016 to address the Eastern Shore of Virginia's dredging needs.
Costs per project depend on several factors, including the calculated cubic yards of sediment to be removed and the costs of disposing of the sediment, he said.
In recent instances of dredging projects on the seaside of Virginia's Eastern Shore, Wachapreague Channel dredging in 2013 cost approximately $775,000 and Bradford’s Bay Channel dredging cost about $1,125,000 in 2014.
"The appropriation is not specific to a particular waterway segment on the WCV, and can be used where best needed to accomplish maintenance dredging of the federal projects," Joeckel wrote in an email.
The committee's establishment came in part in response to the U.S. Coast Guard announcement it would remove most of the Coast Guard aids to navigation on the Virginia Inside Passage due to the lack of maintenance.
The committee released a report in late 2016 which found that, of 59 Eastern Shore of Virginia waterways studied, 22 are in need of immediate maintenance — and more than one third of channels in the waterways have sections with no more than three feet of depth at mean low water.
Additionally, 81 percent of the waterways studied need permit work before they can make progress toward being dredged, the report found. Permits are required before a funded project can be done, but are not sought until after funding is confirmed.
Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced the most recent funding, awarded through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ “Work Plan,” a source of funds provided by Congress for the Corps to allocate to ongoing projects, according to a press release.
“We fought for these key infrastructure projects because Virginia’s waterways play a critical role in the economies of coastal communities,” Warner and Kaine said, adding, “From dredging and beach replenishment to cleaner rivers to new oyster habitats to new infrastructure for the Port of Virginia, these investments will help us protect coastal communities and the environment while growing the regional tourism and port commerce economies.”
