The biggest shock for the three Hampton City Council members and state senator on a Chesapeake Bay Foundation boat tour came just a few minutes in, looking at the big concrete pipes running under Washington Street that are meant to move rainfall from downtown streets into the Hampton River.
The bottom third of the pipes were already under a couple of feet of water. And that water was about 3 feet below the dark line of the high-water mark, with the tide on the rise. Foundation research fellow Thomas Quattlebaum reminded the 16 officials and activists on the Baywatcher that the sea level had climbed 16 inches since 1930 and was likely to rise another three to seven feet by the end of the century.
As no one needed to say: Drain pipes that are underwater don’t drain.
“That was a little bit of a wake-up call,” said Councilwoman Teresa Schmidt, who has been an active participant in the city’s “Dutch Dialogue” efforts to identify and tackle flooding and stormwater issues.
Vice Mayor Linda Curtis agreed. But at the end of the three-hour tour, she said she was also struck that the challenges facing the bay and the low-lying, increasingly flood-prone city of Hampton can be fixed.
“It’s the simplicity of the steps we have to take,” she said. “It’s something that everybody needs to take part in.”
For state Sen. Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, the partially submerged pipes seemed daunting.
“It’s like, where do you start?” he said. “How are you going to convince someone in Lynchburg that Hampton needs $100 million for pipes?”
But he said that he, too, was struck by the incremental steps that can be taken. He’s going to start with restaurants.
Foundation oyster restoration specialist Heather North outlined the research she and Hampton University student Jonathan Rogers have been doing on where and when the most oyster spat — baby oysters — can be found in the Hampton River, and said she needs more oyster shells for the spat to fasten onto so that they can grow into big, water-filtering adults. One oyster will filter 50 gallons of water a day.
Mason said he would be speaking with restaurant association members later this week. He plans to tell them that the foundation will be happy to pick up restaurants’ oyster shells, and that recognition for a restaurant’s small effort to recycle shells could help it win business.
Longer term, Mason said he plans to ask the five other cities and counties he represents to join Hampton in asking Gov. Terry McAuliffe to restore funding for the stormwater local assistance fund, a program that matches state money to local funds for projects to reduce the flow of runoff into Virginia streams and rivers, as well as into the bay. Mason plans to push his Senate colleagues to fund the program as well.
That fund helped pay for work at Coliseum Lake, said Hampton city water resources engineer Brian Lewis. Steel barriers and new plantings there slow the flow of runoff and allow sediment, nitrogen and phosphorus to settle rather than flow into the bay to cloud the water and create dead zones by feeding algae.
“That took a lot of nutrients out,” he said. “But there are a lot of small projects we want to do.”
“We have to think in new ways,” Lewis said. “We never used to think about schools.” One key engineering objective, slowing the flow of run-off, can be a challenge next to a playground, for instance, he explained. You don’t necessarily want pools of water, or even mud patches, there. One solution: rain gardens.
One recently completed effort, also funded by the stormwater fund, included a pond and rain gardens at Burbank Elementary School.
The thing about spending time on the water is what you learn, said Councilwoman Chris Snead.
Remembering the giant piles of shells that once were such a feature of Hampton’s skyline, she said she was surprised to learn that there’s a big need for shells to create new reefs.
“I think everyone should take this tour,” she said. “Everyone can help the bay.”
Ress can be reached by phone at 757-247-4535.
