Previous presidents weren't exactly environmentally friendly. Roosevelt's Civil Conservation Corps dug ditches to drain pristine New England marshes so farmers could harvest salt marsh hay. Here in Virginia, George Washington drained the swamp, literally, to log the Great Dismal Swamp. Now, slowly, the damage is being undone with the help of Hurricane Sandy funding.
About three years ago, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service partnered with the Nature Conservancy in Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp. The 112,000 acres of forested wetlands straddles southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Recently they celebrated the final installations of water control devices.
Here, people are ceremoniously taking turns dropping aluminum boards into one of a dozen of the dam-like devices. They are placed along the swamp's 150 miles of ditches, most dug by a logging company during the 1950's to move water out.
“By putting in these structures we can not only hold water back but also route it in different areas of the refuge for storage.”
David Byrd manages the $3.1 million project to help the swamp recover from centuries of logging. And there's another problem, the swamp is slowly sinking.
“Water's coming up, grounds going down, more frequent storms, it's a bad combination for flooding.”
Then there are the wildfires. In 2011, a massive wildfire that even Hurricane Irene couldn't extinguish, sent smoke plumes hundreds of miles around the state.
“This soil is one of the rare soils that burns. It's peat soil so you not only get a fire above the ground but it can burn down under the ground, and it's very hard to get out.”
Though no nearby homes were damaged by the fires, they have been flooded says Refuge Manager Chris Lowie.
“Particularly last fall, we had a trifecta of tropical storms and hurricanes that came in a very short amount of time. During those events people had four-foot of water in their homes.”
But he adds, the water control devices are not a cure-all.
“Anything we do is not going to stop the impacts and the damage caused by such a severe event like that. It was 38 inches of rain in five weeks.”
Fourth District Representative Donald McEachin has heard about the flooding from his constituents. This was his first visit to the swamp.
“This is a part of my district and it's wonderful to see us take care of such a jewel as the Dismal Swamp. Certainly there are flood issues all throughout the fourth congressional district because of rising seas and that sort of thing.”
Lowie says people in Chesapeake and Suffolk will get some relief.
“The impact they will see is in smaller storms. We get the six to eight to ten-inch rainfall events. We can have an impact to let the wetland be a wetland again instead of all this water running into the ditches and flowing out and downstream into the communities.”
Returning wetlands also will begin to bring back the swamp's native plants and trees, as well as the wildlife, like the cockaded woodpecker reintroduced and reproducing for the first time this year.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.