Environmental groups in Hampton Roads often conduct yearly or biennial health assessments of waterways, such as the Elizabeth and James rivers and Chesapeake Bay writ large.
A new report is the first in 25 years to focus on the York River watershed, a sprawling ecosystem home to more than 630,000 people, stretching from Yorktown and the Middle Peninsula north to Lake Anna and the Mattaponi River.
The State of the York was spearheaded by the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Virginia, which operates out of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point.
Cirse Gonzalez, the reserve’s training and engagement program coordinator, said the process started several years ago at a community roundtable.
“People really wanted to receive more information on everything from emerging threats like harmful algal blooms, fisheries, flooding, recreation. People wanted to hear about protected areas and biodiversity,” she said. “So the State of the York watershed system now does just that.”
The group received a $100,000 federal grant for the effort.
The watershed system encompasses more than 3,200 square miles and includes three river basins: the York River, which is the largest, followed by Mobjack Bay and the Piankatank River. It also contains six “sub-watersheds,” such as the Pamunkey and Mattaponi.
The region has long been a predominantly natural landscape, featuring forests, wetlands and agricultural land. About 75% of the land cover remains that way.
“That cover is essentially protecting us from ourselves, because it's mitigating any damage that is coming from development,” Gonzalez said. “There's no telling for how long that will be the case, especially in the face of the risk (to) our natural areas.”
The 17 localities in the York system experienced slow population growth in the 2010s. But post-COVID trends have shown an increase, with some spots becoming the fastest-growing in the state, according to the report.
The region’s natural features are part of the draw. Conversely, those features could be impacted by the inward migration, Gonzalez said.
Higher populations require accompanying infrastructure, such as more housing and roads that often pave over green space. Between 2000 and 2020, the York watershed grew by more than 170,000 people and 76,000 housing units, according to U.S. Census data.
Another big threat is shoreline erosion, a gradual wearing down of the coastline that is accelerated by rising sea levels, strong waves and sinking land. Development further compounds the issue.
More than 95% of the York area’s shoreline has eroded over the past century, with only about 4% of the shoreline growing through natural collection of sediments.
Between 1970 and 2009, the region also lost more than 400 football fields’ worth of tidal marshes, which the report calls the system’s “most iconic, if not important, natural areas.”
Marshland helps buffer erosion, provides habitat and improves water quality. Since the previous data was collected, many more wetlands have likely been lost, making low-lying land even more vulnerable to flooding.
The report also highlights ways that residents and officials are preserving the landscape, such as installing living shorelines, planting oyster reefs and a Middle Peninsula program that connects property owners with flooding solutions.
Gonzalez said officials purposefully avoided using a report card-style approach that assigns an overall grade to the health of the ecosystem. She hopes the study will instead be a “launch pad” for residents and leaders to home in on their specific interests.
“We hope they use it to help inform their neighbors, to help inform their communities, to take to their local elected officials to update on the emerging threats that their watersheds may be experiencing, and to serve as kind of a guidepost for continued action.”
