Virginia’s Resilience Efforts Accelerate

SUMMARY: Virginia’s state government is starting the final work to implement a number of laws passed earlier in 2020 to address sea level rise and other climate change impacts. These changes will challenge state agencies as they are among the first in the nation to try some of these novel approaches. Citizens, state and local governments, environmental organizations, and the private sector need to pay attention and participate in the final development of these programs as they go out for comment over December, 2020.

BACK STORY: In the 2020 session of the General Assembly a number of new laws were enacted to help Virginia address sea level rise, flooding, and other climate change impacts. Now, these laws are being put into effect and Virginians need to pay attention.

The most significant actions are being taken to set up our sea level rise response, with the issuance of a Coastal Master Planning Framework in November. The next step is the recent issuance of draft guidelines for Virginia’s Community Flood Preparedness Fund. These draft guidelines are very important and will be open for comment for 30 days. The guidelines will determine how tens of millions of dollars in resilience funding will be spent.

Governor Northam also announced the appointment of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) that will provide advice to Virginia’s efforts to fund resilience projects in the coastal region. The TAC was proposed in the Coastal Master Planning Framework and is composed of a mix of state agency and regional government representatives as well as academic institutions and members of the public. This TAC is ONLY for the coastal region: the Flood Fund is statewide so the riverine/Piedmont/Mountain communities will need some additional technical assistance.

Equally important for Virginia’s coastal localities is the development of regulations to include sea level rise in the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act (CBPA), a regulatory program to control shoreline disturbance. Draft regulations will go to the Virginia Water Quality Control Board on December 9 and then be sent out for public comment.

These regulatory actions are very important to coastal Virginia and we all need to read and comment on these proposals.

Draft Community Flood Preparedness Fund guidelines - download HERE.

(Wetlands Watch white paper of local government needs in the Fund - HERE.)

Draft Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act regulations - download HERE.