Army Corps details Lynnhaven River revival plans

VIRGINIA BEACH

The Army Corps of Engineers began laying out its plans Monday for restoring the Lynnhaven River, an environmental rescue project expected to take years and cost millions of dollars.

Speaking at a scientific conference about the Lynnhaven, corps officials said they envision a multipronged assault: restoring wetlands, replanting sea grasses, removing muddy sediments that cloud the water and smother fish habitat, and reconnecting 20 man-made lakes to the tidal rhythm of the river.

There also is talk about trying to create a new population of bay scallops in the Lynnhaven.

These edible bivalves, each about the size of a quarter, have not existed in the river since the 1940s, if ever. But their presence would add a high-dollar commercial seafood resource to the waterway as well as encourage cleaner water quality and add biodiversity to aquatic life, scientists said.

The ideas stem from nearly six years of study, which cost the corps and Virginia Beach about $3.2 million. Actual construction of suggested remedies would not begin until at least 2014, assuming funding is available through Congress and city government.

"We've generated a tremendous amount of scientific data and have some good ideas for how to turn things around," said Greg Steele, a corps manager involved with the restoration project.

The Lynnhaven, with its connected Broad Bay and Linkhorn Bay, is the largest river system in Virginia Beach. It stretches across 64 square miles and has more than 220,000 residents near its shores. The system nearly died from unchecked development in the 1950s and '60s, when environmental laws did not exist.

Shocks of raw or poorly treated sewage flowed into the river back then, along with fertilizers, mud, chemicals and contaminated storm water. One of the world's great suppliers of oysters was closed to all shellfish harvesting because of excessive bacteria and health risks.

In 2003, the Norfolk district of the corps joined forces with the city and a new environmental group, then known as Lynnhaven River 2007, in hope of sparking a comeback.

On Monday, the group - renamed Lynnhaven River Now - sponsored the first symposium on the river, bringing together the latest scientific research for a day long conference at Cape Henry Collegiate School.

Jennifer Howell, an official with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, described how nutrient pollution - excessive amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and ammonia - has mostly declined since 2003. That has helped water quality and is "definitely something good going on here," she said.

Curiously, though, inorganic nitrogen has increased in the past six years, Howell said, a trend that could be linked to residential lawn fertilizers.

The Lynnhaven has received much attention since health restrictions were lifted in 2007 that allowed direct oyster and clam harvests in sections of the river for the first time in decades.

But a state health manager, Tim Fearington, said that "conditional" restrictions might be added to shellfish harvests. Bacteria levels, he said, seem to be too high after rain storms, when land-based pollutants are washed into the river.

Fearington said no final decision has been made - and likely will not be made until October, when the Lynnhaven's latest health status is reviewed.

Perhaps the largest obstacle to recovery, corps officials said, is mud.

Too much mud - from streets, lawns and storm drains - is making it difficult for underwater grasses to grow. This in turn diminishes oxygen levels in the water and leaves baby fish and crabs with few places to hide and survive, they said.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com