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Stormwater advisory committee details $16.5M in CIP work and 190 heritage grant projects since 2016
Summary
The Stormwater Program Advisory Committee presented a five‑ to ten‑year project list, identified staffing needs and described watershed plans that together could mean hundreds of future stormwater and stream restoration projects.
Matt Woolsey, chair of James City County’s Stormwater Program Advisory Committee, presented the board with a summary of the county’s stormwater capital improvement program and the Clean Water Heritage grant program during the March 2025 meeting.
The nut graf: The presentation outlines dozens of candidate projects — stream restorations, BMP retrofits and other capital improvements — prioritized by watershed plans and identifies staffing and planning steps the county says it will need to advance work without delaying current operations.
Woolsey told the board the county’s stormwater CIP has funded 26 projects across all five magisterial districts at a combined estimated cost of $16.5 million; roughly $7 million of that total came from outside sources such as state grants and cost share. From fiscal year 2016 to 2024, the county completed about 190 Clean Water Heritage grant projects with a total program cost of roughly $5 million and a grant match of about $2.2 million.
Woolsey said watershed management planning identified about 355 candidate projects across five watershed plans (Powhatan, Skimino, Ware, Yarmouth and Diascund); those lists include 93 potential stream restoration projects and about 112 potential BMP projects, 19 of which were given higher priority after an initial ranking exercise. Woolsey emphasized that the rankings are high‑level and that staff must evaluate constructability, easement needs, property ownership and other real‑world constraints before any project advances to design or construction.
To carry the program forward, Woolsey said the advisory committee supports hiring two positions: a CIP lead (already advertised) and a watershed planner to support project development and grant writing. The board previously approved a grant application for a countywide resiliency plan funded by the Community Flood Preparedness Fund; Woolsey said that plan would allow cross‑watershed analysis and could include operational initiatives such as road approach assessments and quantitative flood modeling.
During questions, board members asked how soon the yet‑to‑be‑completed watershed studies would be finished; Woolsey and county staff said some studies are forecast in the FY 2026 budget cycle and others are scheduled in a 2028 timeframe. Several supervisors praised the work and asked staff to keep residents informed as individual projects move from planning to design.
The committee presentation set the stage for the county’s upcoming capital budget work and for grant‑seeking that relies on local matching funds, Woolsey said.
