Assateague beach site moving north to avoid storm damage
Planning is underway to move Assateague’s recreational beach north to a more sustainable site.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and local partners held a three-day workshop last month to explore design options for the new beach, parking lot and facilities.
“It’s the heart of the local economy. We really need to be concerned about its future condition,” said Refuge Manager Kevin Sloan of the shoreline that hosts more than 1 million visitors each year.
Storms pose an omnipresent threat to Assateague’s beach and parking lot, which exist on a shrinking piece of land at the island’s southern tip.
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Though recent storm Hermine did not decimate the lots like January’s nor’easter did, the tropical storm still closed the beach over Labor Day weekend.
“Even though the storm was minimal, they still had overwash in the parking lot that shut the parking lots down,” said Arthur Leonard, mayor of the Town of Chincoteague, which is also involved in the planning process. “With the new parking lots, I don’t think that’ll be a concern.”
The new beach and lots will open 1.5 miles north of the current beach, in a location less susceptible to storm surges, thanks to a more developed dune line, Sloan said.
At an estimated cost of $18-20 million to complete the project, though, that won’t be for years, he said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, along with the Federal Highway Administration, Town of Chincoteague, Accomack County, NASA, Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, are exploring potential designs for the new site.
The top priority is the visitor experience, Sloan said.
“We know our visitors are a very important part of the economy for the people of Chincoteague,” he said, and Leonard agreed that ensuring visitors have a beach to enjoy is the main benefit the relocation will bring.
While beachgoers may have to walk further to get to the sand in the new location, distance is another priority as plans develop, Sloan said.
Planners are also looking at environmental compatibility as they narrow designs.
In picking the location, a team of climatologists and geomorphologists landed on the beach to the north because of its more stable sand dunes, which act as a barrier between the sea and parking lots during storms.
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“We want to make sure that we are doing something that is sustainable through the years,” Sloan said, adding there is still no guarantee that a big storm won’t affect the lots up north.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service will complete steps of the new beach launch as they secure funding, Sloan said, and the next goal is to complete details on the designs.
That includes finding ways to fit the parking lots into the existing landscape and to place infrastructure in the most elevated areas “to make sure that we are stretching the taxpayer dollar as far as we can,” he said.
Once that phase is complete in two to three years, the public will have the opportunity to comment on the alternative designs.
Beach parking has long been a contentious issue on Chincoteague, where stakeholders have made suggestions such as shuttling visitors to the beach from a remote lot.
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But consensus between the town and refuge is stronger than it has been in years, Sloan said.
Leonard agreed: “Our beach is getting smaller and smaller down on the south end and we have to be able to adapt. If that means moving the parking lots north, we’ll still have the same amount of parking, still have the same amount of oceanfront we can enjoy. It’ll just be in a different place.”
“The question is, do you fight to stay where you are, or do you work together to make something better?” he said.
The time frame for moving the beach to its new northern location depends on securing funding, so the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service cannot say when the new beach and lots will be underway.
In the meantime, they will maintain the current beach and parking for visitors to enjoy, including repairing damage due to storms.