Posted on February 18, 2019
Dredging in Virginia Beach has at times been halted by “bad actors” that lease oyster grounds for the wrong reasons, and state lawmakers are trying to crack down. (Courtesy city of Virginia Beach)
When homes along the Lynnhaven River were built in the 1980s, developers promised access to deep water for boat enthusiasts to get out to the Chesapeake Bay.
But as Virginia Beach continued to expand and evolve, runoff from construction, new roads and storms found its way into the city’s waterways. Years of built-up silt resulted in a shallower river, and boating access became restricted.
The city has a plan to restore the channels to a depth that allows for the safe passage of boats, but efforts have at times been thwarted by what members of a yearlong, statewide work group called “bad actors” — people who lease productive and unproductive oyster grounds to block a dredging project or stop their neighbor from getting a lease.
It’s an acute problem on the Lynnhaven River: around $35 million of dredging is planned, but there are a small number of oyster leases that complicate those plans.
The work group — comprised of legislators, local government officials, the Virginia Marine Science Commission, conservation advocates and representatives from the shellfish industry — met to address these “user conflicts,” and three Hampton Roads lawmakers think they may have a solution.
“As the city moved to start dredging projects on there, they were — ‘held hostage’ is probably too strong of a word — but certainly people who paid a minimal amount of money for the leases were requesting significant amounts of money from the city in order for them to dredge an open channel so that people can get their boats in and out,” said Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach.
In 2015, the city started one such dredging project in Bayville Creek, near the Lesner Bridge. City officials notified the two lease owners whose unusable grounds they would be dredging through, but never heard back, so they plowed forward.
Right before contractors hit the boundary line of one of the leases, the city got a letter from VMRC directing the work to stop — because no response meant no consent, according to state law.
“We had to stop the project immediately,” Deputy City Attorney Becky Kubin said, or risk being fined thousands of dollars per day.
Kubin and her staff tried contacting the lease holders — by email, mail and phone — to no avail. Finally, after a few weeks, the city found one of the lessees who was at odds with the city of Virginia Beach over a separate matter involving Chesapeake Beach. She let the city dredge through her lease — for $4,500.
The city worried any future dredging projects might be hindered if other lessees also weren’t responding to notifications.
“We realized we’re going to have this all over the Lynnhaven, because there’s tons and tons of oyster leases in there, most of which don’t grow oysters,” Kubin said.
Additionally, if a lessee objected to a municipal dredging project going through their lease and there was no agreement on compensation, the project was dead.
That’s where Stolle’s bill comes in. It says people who lease unused oyster grounds on the Lynnhaven River have 60 days to respond to the VMRC notification of a dredging project going through their lease. If there’s no response, the project moves forward.
Secondly, his bill creates a resolution if there’s no agreement between the city and the lease holder who might be affected by the dredging.
If municipal dredging is proposed through an oyster ground that’s actively used, VMRC must first make sure the dredging impacts the grounds as little as possible. Then the commission notifies the lessee, who can work out compensation with the city, or — if they can’t come to an agreement — go into mediation, and then to the courts.
Regardless of what happens between the city and the lease holder, VMRC holds a public hearing before granting or denying a dredging permit.
“The industry is not out to keep dredging from happening,” said Mike Oesterling, executive director of the trade association Shellfish Growers of Virginia. “All we want to have happen is it be done in the most judicious way possible with the least amount of damage to the oyster bottom.”
He said while he’d rather localities avoid dredging through active oyster grounds altogether, this was a good, transparent compromise after years of “one-sided” legislation that went nowhere.
“Most of the time, the legitimate watermen are going to try to work with the local authorities because they don’t want to be the bad guys,” he said.
Who draws the lease lines?
The General Assembly passed another bill that may help Virginia Beach by deterring people who one delegate said are getting “riparian leases” — agreements that give you control over state waters adjoining your property — for the wrong reasons.
Right now, unlike a commercial oyster lease, the person applying for a riparian lease — who needs 205 feet of shoreline to lease up to a half-acre of bottom ground — draws the boundary lines, with VMRC having no say.
Del. Robert Bloxom, a Republican who represents Accomack and Northampton counties as well as parts of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, said some people have gotten riparian leases to block dredging projects or stop someone else from being able to lease productive grounds.
“They weren’t getting it in the spirit of what the law was intended for, which is to help the landowner propagate shellfish for himself,” he said.
Kubin said she saw this happening in Virginia Beach.
“We couldn’t believe it,” she said when it halted the city’s dredging project. “We were told we had no standing to protest it.”
But Bloxom’s bill would give VMRC the final say on where those lines are drawn.
“If they apply for something screwy, (VMRC) has the ability to say, ‘No, we’re not doing that,’” he said.
Raising the fees
Oesterling said some leases have been handed down within families, even though the grounds are useless, and some waterfront residents lease grounds to keep a neighbor from doing the same thing. Still others keep leases in their names in the hopes they’ll become valuable someday.
Sen. Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, said his bill also stops “bad actors” by raising the lease application, transfer and renewal fees, something that hasn’t been done in more than 50 years. It had the support of the shellfish industry in the work group.
The bill increases the leasing fees from $25 to between $300 and $1,000 depending on acreage. It also increases the transfer fee from $500 to between $300 and $1,000 and creates a renewal fee — required every 10 years — of up to $300.
“We figured if you’re going to do five acres or under of oysters, a $300 registration is not that bad,” Mason said.
Revenue from the fees will go to the general fund.
Both Mason’s and Stolle’s bills appear to be headed for easy passage.
“Really what we’re trying to do is make sure that the people that are doing this work are in fact for the betterment of oyster aquaculture,” Mason said.
Source:Daily Press
