In 2018, the Virginia General Assembly established the Virginia Waterway Maintenance Fund. It provides the opportunity for localities to receive funds for planning, design, and construction of dredge projects.
There are 123 working waterfronts in the Northern Neck of Virginia that facilitate commercial fishing, aquaculture, recreational boating, and boat building and repair.
The Northern Neck Planning District Commission (NNPDC) contracted with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) and the Shore Consulting Group (SCG) to develop a Regional Shallow Draft Channel Dredging Plan. The plan began by identifying 142 waterbodies with potential dredge needs in Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond, and Westmoreland Counties, and the Town of Colonial Beach.
The Initial Phase (Phase One) – lists 19 water bodies that emerged from the prioritization analysis.
The Feasibility Phase (Phase Two) – includes data collected and analyzed to provide information to the localities regarding the water bodies that may need to be dredged to maintain residential and economic usage.
Selected Studies (Phase Three) – includes further study of five water bodies that are experiencing shoaling. The five are Greenvale Creek in Lancaster County, the Little Wicomico River and Cranes Creek in Northumberland County, Farnham Creek in Richmond County, and Bonum Creek in Westmoreland County. The study includes obtaining sub-bottom cores in the channel and sampling for grain size to determine the exact type of material that will be dredged, doing a bathymetric survey by a licensed surveyor to determine the volume of material that will need to be dredged, sampling sediment in each water body for possible chemical contamination, locating a disposal area(s) for each dredging project, verifying and approving channel designs and approximate costs by a licensed engineer, and developing a Joint Permit Application (JPA) for each project that can be submitted for agency review.
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