Local and federal officials should soon be able to start a long-awaited effort to consider extending a planned floodwall to Norfolk’s Southside communities.
President Donald Trump recently signed a spending package that includes $500,000 for the Army Corps of Engineers to reevaluate.
The study was proposed several years ago after members of several historically Black communities, including Campostella and Berkley, pushed back against being excluded from the floodwall.
The wall is part of Norfolk’s $2.6 billion Coastal Storm Risk Management project with the Army Corps. It’s currently planned to extend about 8 miles, from the Chesterfield Heights area, north around downtown and up to Lambert’s Point.
For the Southside, officials proposed elevating homes and filling basements.
Berkley resident and community activist Kim Sudderth remembers seeing the map of the floodwall, which would be right across the Elizabeth River from her neighborhood.
“So we could see the wall, but we wouldn't get a wall,” Sudderth said. “That was very frustrating.”
The issue stems from the way the Army Corps conducts its cost-benefit analysis, which prioritizes protecting buildings with a high dollar value.
The Corps’ analysis for Norfolk’s project found that a seawall on the Southside would cost more than the homes it would protect.
Sudderth said that it discounted decades of systemic racism, such as the discriminatory housing practice known as redlining.
“We are left vulnerable because our property values weren't as high when they were intentionally diminished,” she said. “So we cried out, ‘This is environmental injustice.’”
Southside residents showed up in force to protest their exclusion, and officials listened. Norfolk and the Army Corps promised to look for funding to reexamine the decision, factoring in not just home values but less tangible benefits such as community history and culture.
Years went by. Community representatives met with officials every few months to stay in the loop.
They thought last month’s meeting would be another uneventful update, but were pleasantly surprised to hear that the funding came through, Sudderth said.
Rep. Bobby Scott helped secure it through a congressional earmark. He said the cost-benefit analysis was flawed.
“I wanted to make sure that communities in my district receive consideration for the same kinds of flood protection that other communities get,” he said. “People have a lot of investment in their homes and should not be disadvantaged just because they live in a low-income area.”
Under the Biden administration, the Army Corps also updated its cost-benefit analysis system to reflect equity concerns, which allows projects to factor in community benefits at the outset, he said.
There’s still a long way to go for the Southside.
A spokesperson for the Corps’ Norfolk District said federal headquarters has until early March to finalize its annual work plan, “detailing how all civil works appropriations will be allocated.”
The district declined to comment further. Norfolk representatives did not provide comment by press time.
The study is expected to take about three years. If officials decide a Southside floodwall is warranted, it would take several more years before the project could be designed, funded and construction started.
Sudderth said the study is “the first step to helping us get the protection that we deserve.”
Norfolk’s seawall isn’t meant to stop all flooding, such as the high tides that frequently flood pockets of the city, including Sudderth’s street in Berkley.
But structural protection would help prevent catastrophic flooding during major storms and could lower flood insurance costs in the neighborhood, Sudderth said.
“This is for the unborn generation,” she said. “I may not see this wall, but this is for the community, as a whole, for the future.”
Meanwhile, the Corps’ Norfolk District is seeking funding for additional project changes, including determining a new, higher price tag, and reconsidering the alignment of the floodwall in the Freemason neighborhood because of resident pushback.
