Strapped for funds, Tangier copes with a sinking feeling

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IN NEED OF A

t wouldn’t have been uncommon to see a headstone in someone’s front yard in the early days of the town on Tangier Island. More than 300 years later, islanders are returning to the practice – not out of tradition, but necessity.

The worn slabs that cover each burial plot are inches apart in one of the town’s cemeteries. It’s a balancing wire act to walk through the rows. Dates on some of Tangier’s headstones range back to the early 1700s.

Against a backdrop of white washed houses, granite markers now protrude from residents’ marshy front yards, out of place. Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge explains the island’s predicament best: “On Tangier, we’re running out of room for the living and the dead.”

Without hesitation, Eskridge recalls the time he had to dig up and relocate the remains of a relative whose gravesite was at water’s edge. He reburied the remains on higher ground on nearby Port Isobel, safe from the tides of low-lying Tangier. Few havens on the island are safe from the unyielding waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Now, after years of delay, Tangier’s living residents are hoping their chances of gaining government funding for protection from the Bay aren’t yet dead in the water.

The most recent study by the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers found Tangier Island is losing nine acres of land a year to erosion. The combined effect of rising sea level and subsidence – or sinking land – is threatening to swamp the homes

Iof the island’s 450 residents, many of whom can trace their heritage back hundreds of years on Tangier. LIFE LINE Residents of shrinking Tangier desperate for federal funds as their island erodes away Eskridge is one of them. The mayor was born and raised on the island that he now champions for – erosion has always been a concern, he said, but the town can’t afford to ignore it any longer. “When it gets closer to you, you take more notice of it – when it gets to your doorstep,” he said. It’s no exaggeration. Daily tides can creep under the cinder blockraised houses, locals say. Major storms have not spared the island in the past. The storm surge during Hurricane Isabel flooded 93 homes and destroyed 16 crab shanties in 2003. The town fared better during Irene, but locals fear

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IN NEED OF A LIFE LINE

Residents of shrinking Tangier desperate for federal funds as their island erodes away Mark Robinson Staff Writer

that without further protection, the next major storm could drown Tangier for good.

In the 1980s, the Army Corps of Engineers built a seawall of large rocks on the island’s west side that extends southward from the harbor. It effectively shields the island’s sewage treatment plant and small airport.

The erection of a seawall structure around the entire island is popular among the island’s residents, though they know it’s unlikely due to the cost. Even if it was funded, such a project would not necessarily guarantee the island’s safety from erosion, according to Tom Szelest, a project manager of the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers Tangier jetty project.

“As to whether (a seawall) all around the island would prevent erosion – we would have to go into numerous studies to determine that situation,” he said.

There is no current project proposed that would protect the entire island from erosion, Szelest said, but smaller projects to protect parts of the island are being considered.

In 1996, Congress approved a jetty costing $1.2 million that would protect the island’s harbor from large waves and ice, Szelest said.

Constructing the jetty at the opening on the island’s western shore would protect the channel that allows islanders to dock their fishing boats; the channel also accommodates the shanties where the harvested crabs are raised before they go to market, Szelest said.

Eleven years passed without funding, and by 2007, the land protecting the harbor eroded away, putting the channel at greater risk. As a result, the Corps proposed an expansion of the project to extend the jetty across the wider opening, upping the cost to $3.6 million.

The state of Virginia pledged $360,000 toward the construction of the jetty and agreed to contribute up to 10 percent of the maintenance cost for the next 30 years, Szelest said. But the project still isn’t completely funded.

The proposed Tangier jetty is one of dozens of projects nationwide in need of limited federal money, Szelest explained.

The Corps is working on the project through CONTINUED ON p.16

A seawall serves as protection for the coastline by preventing the tide from removing the sand on its way back out to sea. The Army Corps of Engineers constructed a seawall to protect Tangier’s western shore from erosion, but the money to fund similar protection for the entire island is not available.

HIGH TIDE LINE

LOW TIDE LINE SEAWALL

Plots in one of Tangier’s cemeteries are nearly touching. The over-crowding has driven some residents to bury relatives in their front yards or on the mainland.

A marker about a 1,000 yards from Tangier’s distant shoreline was once the site of a separate community on the island. It was slowly overtaken by the Bay, which is eroding nine acres of Tangier’s shoreline a year.

the Continuing Authorities Program, which allows them to respond to localized water resource problems without congressional approval.

Under the program, the federal government will share the cost of a small navigation project – which the Tangier jetty falls under - as long as a non-federal sponsor can foot the remaining portion of the bill. U.S. Rep. Scott Rigell, a Virginia Beach Republican whose district includes Tangier Island, said in an email the government has “failed to take action” or “offer a viable alternative” to aid Tangier.

“So far efforts to extend the seawall have been obstructed by a lack of funding and burdensome regulation that has delayed the project for far too long,” Rigell said in the email. “The people of Tangier cannot afford to wait any longer for the government to act.”

Last summer, Rigell proposed a plan to sink out of commission barges off the coast of Tangier to serve as makeshift breakwaters against the waves. The plan – which Rigell said in the email has already been proven effective off the shore of Kiptopeke State Park in Virginia – hasn’t gained ground with island’s residents; the town has not applied for government permits to sink the barges, according to the Corps of Engineers.

Additionally, the company that was supposed to donate the barges, Bay Bridge Enterprises, closed its salvage yard in Hampton Roads and moved to Texas, according to a report published in the Virginia Pilot.

Meanwhile, the problem is worsening.

According to a study by The Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the water surrounding Tangier rises an inch every 10 years. “Here, inches is a lot,” “ said Lonnie Moore, a Tangier resident who lives on the town’s Main ridge, one of three on the island. Bad storms bring water to the edge of his back porch about 30 times a year, he says gravely.

The highest point on Tangier is about five feet above sea level; much of it is less than three feet above the Bay.

Tangier isn’t the only island in the Chesapeake Bay that’s being affected by the rising water. Erosion trounced Watts Island, once the home of a famous light house. Nearby Port Isobel, owned by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, is now protected by breakwaters at its east entrance.

“If you lose things here – you lose more waterman; you lose more land; you don’t have a safe harbor – it affects (the Chesapeake Bay) also,” Moore said of Tangier. The reasons for the sea level change can be traced back to the ice age, but are likely associated with climate change, according to Tom Lochen, a project manager for the Norfolk District of the Army Corps of Engineers aquatic ecosystem restoration study.

Once the site of a community in the 1930s, the now uninhabited northern half of Tangier – termed the Uppards by locals – is slowly eroding away. With it, the protection for the island’s populated

area and harbor is dwindling too. The eastside of the Uppards hosts the majority of the islands grass beds that serve as primary nursery for coveted blue crabs, finfish and other shellfish. Without protection, the beds won’t be spared from the erosion, Lochen said. A result of the Corps’ Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Study is a second Corps proposed option, which would install a series of breakwaters offshore to protect the island and grass beds from erosion, Lochen said. The $9 million to design and build the project would be partially covered by federal funds, but the townspeople would still have to come up with $4.2 million to cover the cost, Lochen said. The cost would be more than $9,000 per person. The town simply cannot afford it. The shrinking tax base has to pay to keep the island’s sewage treatment plant in operation. Aside from funding, the breakwaters need approval from the assistant secretary of the army for civil works. If the project was approved and funded, the Uppards would be protected, along with 1,300 acres of wetland. The report predicts the added protection would increase the crab population as well. But Lochen said the jetty may still be the island’s best bet short-term because of the state funds. No protective structure can permanently offset sea level change, he added, but the residents of Tangier can try to adapt to nature’s course. “The way to combat (sea level change) would be to raise the houses on Tangier Island,” he said. “Now, how far into the future that would be effective – that’s something I’m not prepared to estimate.” WE KNOW WHAT Barring a massive engiTHE RESULTS neering project totaling millions of dollars, ARE GOING TO BE Tangier Island will be ” WITHOUT ANYTHING DONE. claimed by the Chesapeake Bay, according to Carlton Hershner Jr., director of the Center for Coastal Resources Management for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. “At the current rate of sea level rise… The island is eventually going to submerge,” he said. How soon? Fifty years by his estimate. With predictions like Hershner’s on the table, some scientists criticize the efforts to protect the island. Others cite the environmental risks associated with the structures that could jeopardize the island’s grass beds or the irreparable damage of the inland waters, which are worsening the erosion from inland outward. Concerns and predictions aside, Eskridge believes the community should come first. Even if some of the environmental concerns are ignored to put in the protector structures, it’s better than losing the whole island, he said. The community’s sense of urgency to achieve some solution for their sinking home is as unyielding as the waters threatening it. Said Eskridge, even-keeled: “We know what the results are going to be without anything done.” R