Newly-approved state study aims to codify Virginia's coastal resilience funding

Yahoo

02-04-2025

Flooding in Norfolk in 2022. (Photo by Jim Morrison for the Virginia Mercury)
For months, Norfolk City Manager Pat Roberts has been warning that Norfolk needs state help funding its $2.66 billion storm risk plan or it will not move forward.
Norfolk's partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requires a local share of $931 million over 10 years for nearly nine miles of floodwalls, natural solutions like grasses and oyster reefs, and raising houses to protect against billions in damages from a major storm.
Norfolk officials signal changes are necessary for floodwall to move forward
So far, the state has contributed nearly $50 million over two years to the project, half the annual amount sought by the city. There is no money for it in the state's 2026 budget. Federal funding rules require localities to pay 35% of such projects.
Meanwhile, feasibility studies by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are moving forward for Hampton and Newport News, Northern Virginia, and Virginia Beach, where a draft plan recently has been shared with the public and the price tag is expected to dwarf the Norfolk cost.
But the commonwealth has no plan for what projects to fund and how. Now, one is in the works. Del. Phil Hernandez, D-Norfolk, and Del. Michael Feggans, D-Virginia Beach, successfully shepherded House Bill HJ 434, through the General Assembly. The measure, which did not need Gov. Glenn Youngkin's approval, authorizes a three-year study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission to create a methodology and criteria for state contributions to the local share of federal coastal storm risk management projects like the one approved by Norfolk and in the pipeline elsewhere.
The idea is to give local governments some certainty as they consider the multibillion-dollar partnerships with the U.S. Army Corps.
'I don't want to say there's no rhyme or reason, but there's certainly not a structure that everyone has sort of agreed upon, and that really is the genesis of this kind of analysis,' Hernandez said. 'Knowing that you are going to get a dedicated revenue stream for a certain number of years to help you get across the finish line is tremendously valuable and gives you confidence to move forward at the local level.'
Hernandez said the study will look at the best practices in other states. For Norfolk, which is further along than other cities because it's signed a partnership agreement with the Army Corps, the study is a lifeline. 'Under the status quo, we really don't have any place to go as a local government to help us with the resources that we need,' said Bryan Pennington, Norfolk's director of government relations.
'We hope that they will be able to expedite the conclusions of the study because right now all Virginia local governments are effectively at a competitive disadvantage with all other local governments across the United States because we haven't clearly articulated what the state's role is on these federally-funded flood mitigation projects.'
A state policy and fund dedicated to the projects gives localities confidence as their capital improvement budgets evolve to include infrastructure storm risk projects requiring hundreds of millions of dollars.
'Where is this money going to come from?' said Mary-Carson Stiff, executive director of Wetlands Watch, a nonprofit based in Norfolk. 'If we don't have a reality check on what future-proofing Virginia's communities from big storms is going to cost us, then we can't do the appropriate budget planning that's necessary to set us up for success in Virginia.
'Once the analysis is completed, our communities will have a better picture of what resources the state is willing to expend to support local projects, and that will then help local governments make difficult decisions about whether to move forward or not, and if they decide to move forward, where will the additional resources come from?' she added.
Will cities pass bond referendums? Will they enact additional taxes or fees to fill the gap? 'These are the types of conversations that our local governments need to be having with their leadership to see if they can afford these types of projects, and then they also need to be having them with the community members if they are going to request that community members pay a share for the protection that the project will provide,' she added. 'The reality is that the future will require taxpayers to start paying for these projects if they want to stay living in a high-risk place that's protected from big storms.'
Pennington noted that Norfolk unsuccessfully requested $50 million this session to cover half of its local share. 'We do not have sufficient revenue authorities to raise the funds that are required to unlock this $2.6 billion project,' he said. 'Yet we proceed, and we go every single year, asking to the best of our abilities for a reasonable appropriation from the General Assembly because we simply have nowhere else to go.'
Hernandez anticipates there will be ongoing discussions about the funding policy for storm risk plans before the study's conclusion. The Norfolk project is moving toward the beginning of construction, and the Virginia Beach project is approaching the conclusion of the feasibility study.
'We're going to have to think critically with the next governor's administration to try and work toward that policy, even if we refine it in the coming years because 2028 (when the study is due) is too far out to do nothing,' he said. 'These projects are moving forward. We cannot stall out. I don't want Norfolk to be in a spot where we're first in line right now and don't figure it out and are not supporting the project and that makes it go sideways.'
The bill requires JLARC to not only examine what other states are doing, but prioritize projects with nature-based approaches and address socioeconomic inequities.
Those issues have surfaced in Norfolk, where the storm risk plan is the largest infrastructure project in Norfolk's history. Of the threatened waterfront cities in the U.S., Norfolk is ahead with plans to combat rising waters. The City Council approved a partnership agreement with the Army Corps in 2023, passing an additional resolution promising to seek half its share from the state.
Residents of the city's lower-income, largely Black Southside, last year challenged the failure to provide them with floodwalls, noting their home values have been depressed by historical redlining. Critics have long said the benefit-cost analysis used by the Corps values property over people and grey infrastructure over green solutions to the detriment of disadvantaged communities and the environment.
A year later, residents of a wealthier neighborhood on the other side of the Elizabeth River raised the opposite objection. They saw concrete walls rising 11 feet or more through their historic neighborhood as a threat to their enjoyment of the waterfront and lowering their property values.
Stiff notes the focus on nature-based solutions and inequities mirrors recent changes in Army Corps policies promoting green solutions and considering social vulnerability, not just property values, when determining whether the benefit-cost analysis of a project justifies more expensive flood protection measures like concrete floodwalls. It's unclear whether those focuses will continue under the Trump administration.
The JLARC requirements, Stiff said, are a reminder that resilience doesn't encompass only protection from a major storm, but from the day-to-day disruptions of tidal flooding and rain bombs created by the climate crisis. 'There are alternative ways to protect that may be more agreeable to the public and/or may provide multiple benefits,' she added. 'We're so laser-focused on the protection against big storms, but we forget that we have to be the ones to live with the project once it's completed, and if the project is only there for the big one and it doesn't do anything else for us as a community, then it's a short-sighted or lost opportunity investment.'
The costs for projects like Norfolk's plan likely will rise, Hernandez acknowledged, and so will any potential state contribution. Without the project, the 2019 Corps plan estimated that all but a sliver of the city's interior would be at risk for flooding from a major storm by 2075. With the project, the feasibility study says Norfolk will reap annual net benefits of $122 million from reduced damage to businesses, homes, and critical infrastructure, including healthcare facilities.
'There's an economic cost to inaction as well, and that's the other part people need to remember,' Hernandez said.
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