NORFOLK, Va. — Protecting the shoreline is the effort behind the latest construction project in Norfolk.
“The idea is to make this look like the rest of this inlet,” said Chris Epes, Norfolk Division of Environmental Stormwater Management project manager.
That idea is to plant wetlands off West 51st Street in Norfolk. The city's stormwater division is installing about 300 feet of new living shoreline. It's a project that has been in the works for roughly 15 years.
“It’s a really important water quality piece," Epes said, "designed to allow water to come down like stormwater to come down off of the street and to filter pollutants."
He said work on this project started last month.
“Before it was mainly just a long pile of old concrete debris,” Epes said. "It will buffer boat wake and tidal waters in case of a storm."
On Friday, crews replaced that rubble with sand and built oyster castles along the shore, which Epes said will protect the wetlands.
“Also, we’re building a habitat for oysters," Epes adds. "And it helps encourage biodiversity in the inlet.”
This project also comes with some firsts. According to Epes, they’ll be using what’s called QuickReefs in this project – something that’s never been used in Virginia.
“It’s going to be used to fill in the rest of this gap all along the shore,” he said. "That's going to protect the new wetland from getting washed away right after it's planted and allow it to establish itself.
Epes calls this effort resilient.
“It’s like a piece of infrastructure that only improves over time as opposed to hard infrastructure that deteriorates over time and needs to be replaced eventually,” he said.
Construction is expected to end by the end of September, then crews hope to plan wetland grass in October.