CHESAPEAKE, Va. — The Elizabeth River is a jewel of the Hampton Roads area, but a jewel that has been tarnished. Now, with the help of state funding, this body of water could shine once more.
When Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin put pen to paper on the state budget, $3.7 million was put towards the cleanup of the Elizabeth River, along with around $11 million in federal funding.
“When we began our work 30 years ago, people had thought of this river as dead and they had kind of written it off,” said the Elizabeth River Project's Executive Director Marjorie Mayfield Jackson.
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That money will fund the third phase of the cleanup for a 25-acre plot of land dubbed "Money Point." This is one of the major sites contributing to the creosote contamination. Creosote—a black tar used for treating shipping docks, railroad ties and more—has been building up on the river bed since the 1960s when a fire slowly released 40,000 gallons of it into the water.
“What’s on the bottom of the river really creates the health of the ecosystem because if that’s contaminated, the life that should be there is not flourishing to feed the larger life,” said Mayfield Jackson.
The substance causes cancers in river wildlife. When restoration efforts first started, there were only four species of fish left. But since then, things have changed.
“We’ve seen cancer rates drop in our fish dramatically and the return of oysters and otters and eagles.”
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The Elizabeth River Project will clean up this area with the help of the Army Corps of Engineers. Earlier phases reduced cancer six-fold in the indicator fish, the mummichog. Just last week, the organization confirmed that a manatee had been found on a branch of the river for the first time in two years. So, nature is healing.
“I mean, I’ve seen some major red tides, and that is a fish kill. What that means is there’s no oxygen in the water, it’s warm, and you will see a lot of dead fish,” said local fisherman Charlie Church.
As an avid fisherman on the Elizabeth River, Church is seeing this revitalization in real-time. He says the good times are starting to roll back in.
“The river is clear in the winter now," said Church. "There’s a lot more grass growing and overall, it’s healthier."
This is the third and final phase of the project. The next planned project will be a 6-acre cleanup near the Jordan Bridge area.
