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Public Invited! Community workshop meetings focusing on the Lynnhaven River

June 16, 2009
By Brittany Brown
Norfolk District Public Affairs Office

Update: Visit the Lynnhaven River Basin website for more information and presentation from workshop.

NORFOLK, Va.—The Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the City of Virginia Beach begin a series of public workshops this week to brief citizens and seek community input about the Lynnhaven River Basin Ecosystem Restoration Project. The Lynnhaven River Basin Ecosystem Restoration Project is a joint effort to address problems in the Lynnhaven River including wetland loss, subaquatic vegetation (SAV) loss, increased suspended sediments, elevated nutrients and loss of hard bottom.

In order to improve the environmental health of the city’s largest river system, the City of Virginia Beach and Army Corps conducted a comprehensive evaluation. Measures being considered include:

• Wetland Restoration – this measure is the restoration of either completely destroyed or significantly degraded historic tidal wetland habitat.
• Benthic Habitat Restoration - this measure is the removal of silt and other fine materials over historic hard bottom, to support additional bottom habitat restoration measures, such as Subaquatic Vegetation Habitat, Essential Fish Habitat, and/or Bay Scallop Habitat measures.
• Tidal Estuary Connectivity Restoration - this measure is the partial or full removal of dams/weirs to allow areas that were historically tidal estuarine habitat in the Lynnhaven to be reconnected to the tidal Lynnhaven River ecosystem. This measure would include appropriate restoration efforts to previously impounded areas to ensure proper structure and function of tidal estuarine habitat.
• Subaquatic Vegetation Habitat Restoration – this measure is the restoration of SAV to the Lynnhaven River, where possible. This could include eelgrass as well as more warm-water tolerant SAV that is also present in the Chesapeake Bay.
• Essential Fish Habitat Restoration – this measure is the placement of hard structure in the Lynnhaven (such as reefs, rock or other hard structure) to provide for the life-cycle needs of fish species that use the Lynnhaven River, or would more frequently use the Lynnhaven with increased structure.
• Bay Scallop Habitat Restoration – this measure is the restoration of features to re-establish a Bay Scallop community in the Lynnhaven River.

During the community workshops, the City and Army Corps will provide the public information about the project. Additionally, representatives will be on hand to answer questions and collect feedback from the public.

The public workshop meetings are 7 to 8 p.m. at the following dates and locations:

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