Wetlands Watch has joined with a citizen's group,
Concerned Citizens for Preserving Bluff Point, and the
Chesapeake Bay Foundation, in opposing a proposed development on
Bluff Point on Virginia's Northern Neck. Wetlands Watch's assistant director, Shereen Hughes, spoke to the Northumberland County Board against the proposal. Shereen owns a cottage in Northumberland, not far from Bluff Point.
Wetlands Watch
offered formal comments last month, detailing how sea level rise threatens this project.
The developer wants to take a piece of low-lying land out of conservation protection, disrupt the wetlands and shoreline, and build a hotel, marina, shopping mall, and nearly three-hundred houses along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. This proposal makes no sense today and becomes increasingly dangerous from a fiscal and safety standpoint as sea level continues to rise.
It is both bad for the environment and the taxpayer's wallet.
This proposal is a 'poster child' for wrong-headed ideas along Virginia's shoreline: putting hundreds of people, a $40 million hotel, a marina, and 34,000 square feet of store space at the end of a long, low, road in a region experiencing one of the highest rates of sea level rise on the east coast (
1.6 feet/century at the Lewisetta tide gauge).
Private sector insurance is disappearing from areas like this - upwards of 1/2 of the private insurance market has stopped writing new policies along Virginia's Chesapeake Bay shoreline. The National Flood Insurance Program is $18 billion in debt (before this summer's flooding) and reforms being proposed will raise premiums, increase deductibles, or both.
Sea level rise makes new shoreline development increasingly risky - both financially and personally risky. And, these developments increase the costs to the rest of us, in higher insurance premiums/loss of insurance coverage and more taxpayer subsidies to the flood insurance program.
Watch what happens with this proposal in
Northumberland County, Virginia. We'll keep working against this, with our partners. We see this effort as a test case smarter shoreline decisions in the face of sea level rise.
Map of proposed development with flood zone AE overlain - dark red at bottom right. In this zone the developer wants to put a marina, a $40 million hotel and spa, 34,000 square feet of retail, and dozens of homes. This zone is zoned "Conservation" today - the right zoning for a wet, increasingly dangerous part of the shoreline. The developer needs to change this zoning to get the right to build what he wants on this site.