The industrial area of Money Point in Chesapeake was once the most contaminated section of the Elizabeth River, and among the worst in the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Visitors could smell toxic creosote that covered the river bottom feet-thick, a tar-based substance used by industrial plants to preserve lumber coming from places like the Great Dismal Swamp.
By the 1990s and early 2000s, the ecosystem was pretty much dead, said Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, executive director of the nonprofit Elizabeth River Project.
“This was where scientists came with their grad students to study deformed fish and cancer,” she said. “It was infamous. And it seemed like an area that we just had to forget about and give up.”
But environmentalists developed a rallying cry: the Goo Must Go.
“Sediment remediation doesn’t have the same ring,” Jackson quipped.
Over the years it gained traction – and funding. When shipping company Maersk dredged healthy river bottom to build APM Terminals nearby, the Elizabeth River Project used mitigation credits to offset the impacts at Money Point.
The nonprofit ultimately led two years-long phases of restoration at Money Point – the first voluntary cleanup of contaminated sediment in the area, Jackson said.
That included removing 36 million pounds of severe contamination, replacing it with clean sediment and rocks, oyster habitat and reconstructed wetlands.
Officials quickly saw wildlife rebound. “The otters were back immediately,” Jackson said.
Before the project, scientists determined fish in that section of the river had declined to just four species. Afterward, that rose to 26. Fish cancer also dropped sixfold.
But elevated cancer rates remain further upriver. Jackson said scientists pay special attention to a species called the mummichog, which is a good benchmark of the water’s health because it only travels about 50 yards in its lifetime.
The group has been pursuing funding for a third phase at that site for more than a decade.
Last year, Congressman Bobby Scott secured about $11 million in federal funding for the project, which hinged on getting a local sponsor.
Virginia’s final budget this year allocates $3.75 million for the Money Point restoration, which allows officials to access those federal dollars.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will now lead the work over the next two years, focusing on nine acres of river bottom off South Norfolk.
