VA - High tide at East Beach reaches the dunes. Norfolk residents worry they’ll be gone before next beach nourishment in 2026.
A Norfolk beach community and city planners are in agreement that East Beach is losing sand more quickly than predictions.
But those worried about the rapid pace of beach erosion will have to convince federal leaders to fast track $21 million in federal funding in order to bump up a beach nourishment scheduled for 2026.
“We’re afraid we’re going to lose so much sand … that we need to accelerate 2026 to 2024, soon as we can,” said Colin Kelly, a retired engineer who lives nearby, flanked by some of his neighbors.
In the last three and a half years, about 40 feet of sand at East Beach, the easternmost part of Ocean View Beach, has been lost, according to data collected by the city. At high tide, the water is eating into the dunes and with each storm, like Tropical Storm Ophelia in September, even more sand is lost.
“That was a wake up call for us,” said Jim Casey, president of the Bay Breeze Point Homeowners Association.
The residents worry there will be no beach left east of 28th and 29th streets even in mild weather, and primary dunes will be gone the following year, endangering the secondary dunes before the next slated nourishment in 2026.
Before the end of spring, the city is expected to bring in 14,000 cubic yards of sand. But residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are concerned this Band-Aid is not big enough, and they question whether the timetable for regular, federally-funded renourishment of their section of the beach accurately accounts for erosion. The beach-grade sand will come from the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel project and be added to a roughly 600-foot stretch of the beach between the Little Creek jetty and 27th Bay Street. In total, the effort is anticipated to cost $200,000, according to Chuck Joyner, an engineer with the city of Norfolk.
The city monitors the erosion rates twice annually with the most recent study conducted in the spring and results published in September. The results are still being reviewed and Joyner said the next fall survey will start in several weeks
“We have seen erosion rates that are in excess of what we had anticipated and what the Corps of Engineers had anticipated in their computer modeling,” Joyner said.
