Living on the Middle Peninsula of Virginia, a rural coastal community, means learning to live with the water and the single largest problem facing the coastal world – sea level rise and coastal flooding.

Today, there’s more water getting introduced into communities from all different directions – down from the sky, up from the groundwater, in from the rivers and the oceans, and across from stormwater moving.

As a result, water challenges manifest themselves across vast areas, not just waterfront properties.

But just as water poses an ever-present challenge, there are also solutions to help mitigate it.

Nine years ago, with the support of an investment from the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program (VCZMP), the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission (MPPDC) made a strategic and focused decision to view water management in the rural coastal communities it serves as an asset. And it’s worked. The data shows it.

That hasn’t been easy given the history of the region.

Years of regulatory overlap, combined with a strong need to maintain clean waters and a resilient shoreline, created an environment that made it difficult for businesses to grow, homeowners to protect their property and the economy to thrive.

That shift to viewing water as an asset, though, has added up to real dollars – tens of millions of dollars – and real accrued value and benefits to the residents of the region.

That accrued value has come in ways that residents can see – loans and grants that build more resilient properties. As of July 1, 2024, the Fight the Flood program has distributed $44, 506, 804 in direct loans and grants to residents of the Middle Peninsula.

It’s also come in ways that you can’t – advocating for changes in legislation to help reduce some of the regulatory burden on property owners hindering them from building more resilient shorelines.

In Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), though, more and more of those benefits became visible than ever before. Narrative updates in this accrued benefits report delivered for FY23 will focus on the establishment of a living laboratory on the Middle Peninsula that’s now able to test and showcase possible solutions to the water issues plaguing the Middle Peninsula. This living laboratory, while created in partnership with other organizations, comes as a direct result of the MPPDC understanding and working in the coastal resiliency space since 1994 and the VCZMP’s investment in the region, which enables the MPPDC planning staff to focus on coastal resiliency planning.

A Living Laboratory

It’s not just us at the MPPDC that recognizes the impact water is having on the Middle Peninsula region.

“Rising sea levels combined with a high rate of land subsidence make Virginia one of the most vulnerable locations on the East Coast for coastal flooding, endangering communities across the Commonwealth,” Virginia Sea Grant writes, explaining why it’s working alongside the MPPDC and other organizations to create the Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Ecosystem.

Funded by a $2.9 million grant through GO Virginia, Virginia Sea Grant and this ground-breaking project established a living laboratory to support the development of innovative technologies and solutions to challenges associated with flooding and sea level rise facing the Middle Peninsula and beyond. Bringing together state and municipal government agencies, universities, nonprofits and private businesses, the project took a cross-disciplinary approach to solving these challenges.

The Coastal Resilience and Adaptation Ecosystem is made up by Virginia Sea Grant, MPPDC, Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority and RISE Resilience Innovations. Together the group established a living laboratory and support system for developing technologies designed to protect coastal communities.

The project specifically focuses on establishing public-private partnerships between businesses and state universities to design and test resilience solutions under real-world conditions on a network of donated, publicly-owned coastal properties managed by the Middle Peninsula organizations, both the MPPDC and the Public Access Authority.

Businesses participating in the living laboratory were selected through a challenge competition hosed by RISE Resilience Innovations. Winning projects were matched to university partners through a competitive process administered by Virginia Sea Grant. The business and university teams then worked together to find suitable test sites.

The Middle Peninsula Chesapeake Bay Public Access Authority provided the network of public, coastal properties for that real-world testing and validation. The MPPDC further supports the businesses with regulatory and permitting support and guidance. While there are approximately 70 properties available on the Middle Peninsula that offer a variety of environmental conditions for companies and universities to work and study in, Captain Sinclair’s Recreation Area became the epicenter for much of the work. 

Research at Captain Sinclair’s Recreation Area

Locals and visitors alike know one thing about the Captain Sinclair’s Recreation Area – check the tides before you go. Access to the secluded piece of land along the Severn River can be limited during extreme high tides given that the lone road in is prone to getting inundated with saltwater from the surrounding marsh.

However, what may make the property challenging at times for visitors makes it perfect for coastal research and development, and the ultimate living laboratory for testing solutions for property owners.

A small ranch house along Whittaker Creek on the Captain Sinclair’s property is home to several demonstration sites, including the following:

• North Carolina-based Triangle Environmental Health Initiative. This company, which creates wastewater treatment systems typically used in developing communities internationally, is piloting a wastewater filtration system for non-potable reuse for rural communities that will reduce strain on wells and help septic systems stay functional as sea level rise and flooding have a greater impact. This system is vertically elevated above the base flood elevation and eliminates the need for a drain field.
• Biogenic Solutions Consulting. Specializes in shoreline restoration and mitigation management in the Middle Peninsula and the Hampton Roads region, this company was started by Christopher Newport University senior lecturer Russel Burke, and is testing multiple shoreline stabilization techniques along three separate banks of a channel off Whittaker Creek. Their work includes combining artificial concrete-based shoreline structures with geotextile shoreline stabilization methods to test how the various stabilization methods affected wave action, turbidity and marsh vegetation.
• Through their Adaptive Infrastructure, Natrx is creating 3D-printed concrete structures that can be used in shoreline restoration to help establish oyster reefs. Initially interested in studying how mud from dredge projects could be used Natrx found a high amount of clay in the spoils and investigated it as a replacement for some of the cement in concrete, finding that results in more cost-efficient and stronger concrete than traditional methods.
• Knott Alone – Hold Fast. This Gloucester-based nonprofit that works to prevent veterans from committing suicide by engaging them in hands-on commercial fishing and restoration activities is working to study whether marsh grasses can be sustainably harvested and used on living shorelines.

Solutions to Fight the Flood

While all of the solutions being tested will continue the journey to officially come to market, when they are ready, they will have a pre-built market to come to thanks to Fight the Flood, another MPPDC program supported by year over year VCZMP investment.

In 2020, after many years of ongoing financial support from a variety of federal and state partners including the Department of Conservation and Recreation Flood Plain Management Program; Virginia Resource Authority; Department of Environmental Quality; VCZMP through NOAA Coastal Technical Assistance investment, the MPPDC launched Fight the Flood, an online marketplace connecting property owners facing rising flood waters with tools and funding to contract with specialized businesses who can help evaluate, design and build solutions to build more resilient shorelines and protect properties.

Today, nearly five years later, the MPPDC Fight the Flood  program remains the only online flood resiliency marketplace in existence in the U.S. Simply put, Fight the Flood connects property owners to contractors who can help them protect their property from rising flood waters and the financial tools available to fund those projects.

Over those five years the program has grown in its impact and its ability to serve the community.

In 2021, following its initial launch, the MPPDC started its first wave of Fight the Flood enhancements by refining the financial assistance application to collect detailed property information from residents. The MPPDC developed more sophisticated mapping software to showcase those financial assistance applications in a visual way, helping MPPDC staff members see more clearly what financial tools may be more readily available to support property owners while also seeing where property owners are located in the hopes of developing joint applications. That year, the MPPDC submitted two rounds of grant applications on behalf of property owners to the Virginia Community Flood Preparedness Fund.

By 2022, the Fight the Flood Program investment in the Middle Peninsula’s flood protection had topped over $18 million in direct loans and grants.

By 2024, the website portal to the Fight the Flood Program had further expanded to include a robust media center, property owner in-take forms for specific grant and loan funds to address targeted challenges, such as septic, and providing detailed information on solutions available through the program to address specific problems.

Those solutions include the following:

• Dredging: Fight the Flood companies are finding uses for dredge material, turning it into shoreline protection structures, concrete products and more to help homeowners.

• Shoreline: As the space most under attack from erosion, Fight the Flood businesses have developed protection options for property owners.

• Stormwater: Fight the Flood businesses can help fight rain-induced erosion with thoughtful property and landscape design.
• Insurance: Fight the Flood businesses help property owners manage their traditional insurance policies and explore emerging ones.
• Water Monitoring: Property owners who want to know at any given time what level the water is near their home, on their dock or at a certain point of their property can do so with emerging water monitoring technology available through Fight the Flood connections.

• Structural: Property owners suffering from frequent flooding issues can look to Fight the Flood businesses for guidance and support on raising a house or moving a house to protect it from rising water.

By July 2024, the Fight the Flood program on the Middle Peninsula had provided over $44 million in direct loans and grants, further solidifying Fight the Flood as the nation’s leading flood program.

Coastal Cancer

It’s true.

There is a slow demise happening on the land in rural coastal Virginia because of the threat of water.

Rising water wins each and every time.

However, there is another truth now more widely understood on the Middle Peninsula thanks to these accrued benefits notes.

There is real movement in the quest to find solutions that both protect water quality and promote property resiliency against the threat of rising water.

The MPPDC will continue to do community wide analyses to look ahead and determine what property owners may face as sea level rises, stay on the forefront of the innovative solutions being developed to address it, and educate community leaders and elected officials about the opportunities to modernize regulations to ensure they align with current realities.

It is through these continued efforts, thanks to the funding support from VCZMP, that the MPPDC can lead the community to help fight the flood.