NASA applied for a permit with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expand protective measures established to address erosion on Wallops Island.
Christopher Hein, a coastal geologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) is one of several scientists working on a study related to the project.
Right now, Hein said the most significant beach erosion “hotspot” is located directly adjacent to aerospace, military and commercial launch infrastructure and facilities valued at just over $1 billion.
One aspect of the project is to expand the number of breakwaters with an estimated cost between $10 to $25 million to complete.
“The existing breakwaters have shown they are working,” Hein said. “They are doing what we hoped and have added another layer of protection.”
Another aspect of this project would involve dredging about 2.5 million cubic yards of sand from an offshore shoal. It would be piped over 11 miles to restore about 3 miles of shoreline.
Through VIMS, Hein is also part of the Chincoteague Inlet Modeling Study, a collaborative, longitudinal feasibility study that uses past models of the inlet to predict future impacts of things such as erosion, sand migration and wave action on the area, including Chincoteague Island.
As the Wallops project moves forward, and Shore communities in neighboring states receive funding for resiliency work, Mayor Denise Bowden is wondering when it will finally be Chincoteague's turn.
“We need to protect our assets, too,” she said. Bowden and others in the community have long advocated for help with erosion to the tip of Assateague Island at Chincoteague Inlet.
What’s left of this spit of land -- after sand buildup in some areas, along with erosion in others -- is all that protects the southern tip of Chincoteague from stronger everyday wave action and damage from storms.
Bowden keeps a magazine article hanging at eye level at her desk about a $20 million Corps-funded replenishment project in Virginia Beach that has saved an estimated $1 billion in storm damages.
“I don’t just think of it in the office, though,” Bowden said. “Protecting Chincoteague is always on my mind.”
Any help from the USACE has been bottlenecked for more than a decade. To move forward, the project needed to receive a highly competitive designation reserved for projects not previously funded by the Army Corps.
That finally happened this May. The same month, the Army Corps included $500,000 for its own Chincoteague Inlet study. The commonwealth will also provide $1.5 million.
“As mayor and as a citizen, this whole process has been more than slow and frustrating when everyone around us is getting things done,” Bowden said.
Bowden was recently part of a boating excursion through the inlet to show the Corps the increasing effects of wave velocity on Chincoteague.
Although she’s waited a long time for this to happen, she will have to wait a bit more.
Once funded, a feasibility study will take the next few years to complete. Bowden and Hein hope federal engineers will consider data gathered from the VIMS project.
