The Virginian-Pilot
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VIRGINIA BEACH
The city wants to convert an old borrow pit called White-hurst Lake, near Oceana Naval Air Station, into a large disposal site for dredge waste such as mud, dirt and silt that clog local waterways.
The project, if approved by state and federal regulators, would allow the city to move ahead with long-standing plans to dredge much of the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River, a popular recreational stretch for boaters and anglers.
Until now, the city did not have a place to store so much mucky material sucked from the Lynnhaven's bottom.
The Whitehurst Lake proposal also would provide the city and Virginia Beach residents with a cheaper, closer facility to safely dump muddy wastes scooped from canals, community lakes and creeks that suffer from excessive runoff and sediment.
Some residents have had to pay for dredge wastes to be trucked to Suffolk and Chesapeake for disposal, which adds cost to a waterway project.
Daniel Adams, a city engineer overseeing the Whitehurst Lake proposal, estimated the site could hold more than 600,000 cubic yards of such waste, providing enough space to last for the next 20 to 50 years.
"We've needed something like this for a long time," Adams said. "This would help a great deal."
Whitehurst Lake should not be confused with Lake Whitehurst, a reservoir near Norfolk International Airport. The former was created years ago as a borrow pit from which sand and dirt were drawn for road construction and other filling activities.
There is little or no recreational use of the pit today, Adams said, and the closest home is about a quarter-mile away.
The lake is physically connected to Great Neck Creek, which flows into Linkhorn Bay, a part of the Lynnhaven River system.
Adams said there are no plans to install any structure or fence to block waste materials from getting into Great Neck Creek, since access is difficult today and can only occur after a major rain or storm.
But if a curtain or fence should be needed in the future, the city will design and construct one, he added.
Adams could not say how much the project would cost, only that the major expense right away would be building an access road to the lake and compensating for the loss of about an acre of wetlands.
The city already owns Whitehurst Lake, acquiring it in 2007 for this purpose, Adams said.
The project will require permits from the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The corps released information about the proposal last week and will accept public comments through July 30.
Adams said the city hopes to win approval of the project later this year or in early 2010 and then begin dredging the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven soon afterward.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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Here We Go Again!
Here we go again! Just 18 months ago, the Shore Drive Community Coalition rose up and said no to trucking dredge spoils up a long eight-mile grade, from the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River up onto Pungo Ridge and thus to the Whitehurst Pit. All 9,000-tandem truck loads of mechanical dredge sediment. Tearing up roadways, wasting diesel fuel, polluting the air, and snarling traffic. The good ol’ boys, hearing the loud protests backed off. Now they are at it again! This time attacking from the south.
The tragedy of all this is the fact that dredging, for navigation purposes, produces a valuable commodity: sediment. Sediment from a hydraulic pipeline dredging project could be placed immediately seaward of the bulk headed shorelines of the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven. Between the high water mark and the low water mark, on a long 1:6 slope. And could be done for one quarter the cost of mechanical dredging and subsequent trucking.
Restoring the Lynnhaven estuary
And in one short year, this carefully sloped sediment would be transformed into a vibrant spartina alterniflora fringe marsh. No off shore sills are needed. No expensive manual planting of marsh grasses needed. Just an occasional addition of more sediment for maintenance as the decades go by.
A living shoreline, if you will. A living shoreline that could efficiently remove coliform bacteria, sediments, PCBs, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, lead, chlorine radicals and viral particles from the waters which flow though the spartina alterniflora.
The sad part about all this is that the good ol’ boys want to build 14 acres of new land from the currently “useless”Whitehurst Pit. And to hell with the truck traffic, wasted diesel fuel, road wear …and especially to hell with the invaluable sediment that could be used to truly restore the Lynnhaven estuary.
Oh my......
....I have obtained more information on this whole project. I was wrong, the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven is all located in Virginia Beach. This is a different story. Virginia Beach will be paying for all of this. Who will it benefit? All those million dollar homes on the Western Branch. Who will pay? All the residents of Virginia Beach. Who will really pay? The Great Neck Creek watershed flows into the base of the Eastern Branch of the Lynnhaven. Think, right there at the marina on Laskin Road s/o Birdneck. All the surrounding area on both sides of Va. Beach Blvd almost up to First Colonial ....see for yourself at: http://www.lynnhavenrivernow.org/files/pages/lynnhaven_sub-watersheds_map.pdf .
A person who believed in conspiracies might think that the city was trying to pollute all those areas in the Landing/Acuiz zone, Love Canal style, so they could condemn them and turn them into commercial property (for sale). One last note, the stink and filth in that area will draw seagulls right into a path at the end of an Oceana runway. Oh, the horror! ☻ ☻
water run off?
For all of you complaining about this dirt getting in our waterways remember where it is coming from, the waterways. The only issue with this location is that IF it does run off into the Bay is that we are going to dredge it out again. Those of you complaining about it polluting the waterways sound completely ridiculous IT'S DIRT. Maybe next we should start complaining that the di-hydrogen monoxide is polluting our waterways. I mean that is the real issue here.
water runoff
has anyone calculated where the storm/rain runoff will go if this is approved??? All of you lining in VB in low area's bettet start digging into your photo alblums so you will have a case when your houses start flooding because the rain cannot go into the lake/pit!!. How will they get it there?? Will all the storm drains be filled up with spillage from the trucks?? It is so easy for VB to decide this stuff because it's not going to affect them till the pit is full then Standby We Need a major TAPXPAYER project to rectify this Problem we created?? Which Developer came up with this???. And you all throught Myra was Bad!.
Citizens of Linkhorn Bay Beware
Residents living near Linkhorn Bay and the Lynnhaven River beware. Runoff from this project will definitely get into your waters. How often does this area have what the article termed "major rain" or storms? My neighborhood lake receives run off from the city's dump, and evidentially Virginia Beach thinks this is OK. Although this is a private lake it is part of the city's drainage system. Our once crystal clear recreational water has in the past two years become a mass of green algae. This is even after our community association has raised our dues by approximately $8,000.00 to treat the water to mask the problem. The city currently takes no responsibility for our pollution problems. The problem that is about to be created will be even worse because this site will be getting sludge, most likely toxic, from anyone who will pay the fee to dump. Sludge from the Elizabeth River would be really interesting to deal with. Hopefully, the citizens who will be affected will join together to keep this project from polluting their waterways.
That pit is quite deep....
..and reaches the water table on several levels. It has to be pumped to stay dry. Therefore the pollutant filled dredge material will leach into the water table and pollute all the ground wells for several miles around the area. As well, the water table is connected to Great Neck Creek and several others even without overflow. The city, Virginia Beach, has often shown before that public opinion has no effect on their decisions. Besides, what kind of deal is this where we are taking the "dregs" of another city and putting them in Virginia Beach? It is your job, Scott Harper and the Pilot Online, to warn the public of the dangers that await them. Thanks for getting the ball rolling.