Feds seek public comment on Assateague beach design

Visitors and locals alike this week had the chance to see conceptual designs for a new recreational beach planned for Assateague Island National Seashore in Virginia.

An informal open house was held July 25, 26 and 27 at the Herbert H. Bateman Educational and Administrative Center at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge to give people a chance to see alternative designs being considered for parking and the road to the new beach.

The beach is being moved about 1½ miles north of the existing recreational beach area to a more stable part of the barrier island.

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and the beach see more than 1 million visitors a year and account for $200 million in economic activity on Virginia's Eastern Shore, according to information handed out at the open house.

READ MORE   Assateague beach site moving north to avoid storm damage

The alternative designs were developed by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service through a collaborative process involving local stakeholders, including the town of Chincoteague and Accomack County.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration are initiating an environmental assessment to analyze the site design plans for parking and access to the new beach. A public comment period is open until Aug. 24.

On Tuesday, National Park Service and National Wildlife Refuge staffers were on hand to answer questions posed by visitors at the open house.

By around two hours into the first day of the open house, more than two dozen people had visited the displays at the Batemen Center.

Where the new parking lots are proposed to be located in relation to the beach was a frequently asked question among attendees Tuesday, said Debbie Darden, superintendent of Assateague Island National Seashore.

"One of the features of the parking lots is that, although this part of the beach is moving a lot slower than where the current beach is, it still is moving westward — the whole island is moving westward. In this part of the island where the new beach would be located, it's moving about 13 feet a year westward," Darden said.

Darden continued, "And so, what we said was, we don't want to build a new parking lot and have it immediately be in the same situation as the old parking lot. So we said, what would be reasonable? And we said, 20 years."

As result, all three parking lot designs being considered place the lots at least 260 feet back from the dune line.

"We took 13 feet and multiplied it by 20 (years) and got 260 feet," Darden said, adding, "That sort of became the baseline for the parking schemes."

All three designs also have at least 961 parking spaces, like the existing lots.

Tina Ross, visiting Chincoteague from her home outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wandered into the open house Tuesday after seeing a sign at the Batemen Center advertising it.

"We've been coming here several years for the Pony Swim. It's interesting — the island is not stable," said Ross.

The open house was the first she had heard about plans to move the beach north on Assateague Island.

"I don't know; I hope their plan works. It's a longer walk to the beach that way, but if you save the island, you have to do what you have to do," Ross said, adding, "Maybe they could do shuttle buses or something to get people that are schlepping a whole bunch of stuff" to the sand.

On display boards in a classroom at the Batemen Center were depictions of three alternative configurations for parking and two alternative locations for the fee booth, along with a time-lapse video depicting how the island's southern tip has changed between 1984 and the present, a traffic model and a slideshow about the beach relocation project.

The decision to hold the open house during Pony Penning week was deliberate, according to Kevin Sloan, Project Leader at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.

The Tuesday of Pony Penning Week, a lull between Monday's Beach Walk and Wednesday's Pony Swim, typically is one of the Bateman Center's busiest days of the year, he said.

This is the public's first chance to comment on the designs, and there will be another public comment period after the draft environmental assessment comes out in December or January, Sloan said.

The draft document will identify a preferred option among the alternative designs.

Funding is in place for planning for the beach move, but for nothing more at this point, Sloan said.

The beach needs to be moved because the existing recreational beach is located in an area of the barrier island that is constantly changing, officials say.

"The southern end is a lot more dynamic than the rest of Assateague. The rest of it is moving a lot more slowly," Sloan said.

Trying to maintain facilities, including parking lots, at the existing beach takes lots of effort — and lots of money to make repairs after frequent storms wreak havoc.

Winter Storm Jonas in January 2016, for example, left damage that cost $600,000 to repair.

A total of $3.5 million has been spent on repairs since 2006.

"We've been doing this now for 50 years, and it's time to move it someplace where the public's investment is safer," Sloan said.

The Federal Highway Administration is working on the road design aspect of the beach move.

One proposed design adds lanes to the existing fee booth area, while another shows a roundabout, with one road heading in the direction of the existing Beach Road and another leading to the new beach area, and with the fee booth on the roadway to the new beach.

All displays from the open house will be available on the project website, https://flh.fhwa.dot.gov/projects/va/chin-10/.

A public comment form also is at the website.

Comments may be mailed to:

ATTN: North Chincoteague Beach, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, PO Box 62, Chincoteague, Va. 23336.

Comments also may be emailed to NorthChincoteagueBeach@dot.gov.

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