Norfolk, Va., $2.6B Coastal Resilience Plan OK Comes With Caveats

A photo of the Norfolk, Va. skyline — Norfolk, Va.’s city council has approved a $2.6-billion coastal resilience partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
*Photo courtesy of the City of Norfolk*

Norfolk, Va.’s city council has approved a $2.6-billion coastal resilience partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, despite lingering questions regarding funding and allegations that the plan provides insufficient protection for lower-income neighborhoods.

To be carried out over ten years, the five-phase program would protect the city of about 235,000 residents from coastal storms and associated flooding by constructing nearly eight miles of floodwalls, storm-surge barriers, a one-mile levee, tide gates and pump stations. Nature-based systems to function with or restore natural processes to reduce storm surge are also part of the program, as are property-specific measures to limit flood damage.

Federal funding will cover 65%, or $1.7 billion, of the project’s costs, with the remainder to be provided by the city. Construction could begin later this year with the replacement of an existing floodwall in Norfolk’s downtown area, and construction of the first storm surge barrier.

Rising sea levels, subsidence, oceanographic changes and more frequent and intense coastal storms have heightened Norfolk’s risk of flooding and damage, according to city resilience officials, as has an aging stormwater management system that has not kept pace with development. A 2018 Corps feasibility study found that nearly the entire city will be at risk for flooding by 2075, but that implementing measures to reduce damage and improve resilience would provide an annual net benefit of $122 million.

The plan has not been without controversy, particularly among residents of historically Black Southside neighborhoods that are currently set to receive only nature-based and property-specific mitigation measures while structural systems are planned for higher-income areas. Business leaders have also expressed concern about how the alignment of certain floodwalls will affect existing and future development.

Along with approval of the coastal protection plan, the city council also passed resolutions calling on the Corps to incorporate structural barriers for the Southside neighborhoods, citing the Biden Administration’s EJ40 environmental justice directive. Such a change will likely require multiple stages of federal-level review and approval, complicating the project’s current implementation schedule.

Another council resolution seeks to address concerns about Norfolk’s ability to provide its nearly $1 billion funding share over the project’s lifetime, given other demands on its limited budget resources. The city’s efforts to secure up to half that amount from the state legislature so far have been unsuccessful. Norfolk will also be required to spend an estimated $2.3 million in annual operations and maintenance of the protection system once the project is completed.