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Staff briefs council on proposed dredge‑materials management area at 560 Oceana Boulevard; vote set for next meeting
Summary
City engineers briefed the Virginia Beach City Council on June 10 about plans to establish a dredge materials management area at 560 Oceana Boulevard and said modeling indicates a two‑foot berm and monitoring would contain a 100‑year storm without increasing runoff.
Tony Hanson, a city engineer, briefed the Virginia Beach City Council on June 10 about a proposed modification to a conditional use permit to establish a dredge materials management area (DMMA) at 560 Oceana Boulevard. Hanson said the site is the divide between two drainage basins and “does not operate as a BMP or stormwater management facility” because there are no pipes conveying stormwater to or from the lake.
Hanson said the city ran hydrologic modeling for a 100‑year, 24‑hour storm event (11.3 inches) and concluded that constructing a two‑foot berm around the lake’s eastern section would provide additional storage and contain the modeled storm. He said the berm and the planned filling would increase on‑site stormwater storage and would not increase stormwater runoff; “it will actually have less stormwater runoff than the preexisting condition,” he said.
Staff noted the city purchased the property in 2016 under an ordinance that specified the site could be used for the deposit of dredged spoils; staff listed the 2016 ordinance as the authority for the proposed DMMA. Hanson identified three privately owned alternative disposal sites more than 20 miles from most dredging projects but said staff had not evaluated capacity or acceptability for those sites and that using private sites would raise costs for neighborhood dredging special service districts (SSDs).
Council members who represent adjacent neighborhoods said they had visited the site and asked staff to confirm groundwater protections, utility monitoring and whether berming and filling would affect area flooding. Staff said monitoring wells are in place for baseline data, that an impervious clay layer sits below the lake and that residents’ drinking-water sources are at deeper levels; staff also said the city would provide a replacement drinking-water source if the city’s actions caused damage to private wells.
Council members raised wildlife and traffic concerns; staff said the site is zoned industrial, adjacent to Navy property, and that the city had not completed a wildlife assessment. The planning commission previously voted unanimously against the modification; staff said the commission’s vote did not provide detailed rationale and reaffirmed council’s vote on the modification is scheduled for the next voting meeting. Council did not take final action on June 10.
