NORFOLK, Va. — Starting next week a section of East Ocean View Beach will be closed off to the public as the city of Norfolk takes care of a big erosion problem.
"Yes it is a band-aid, but it's a big band-aid we think, until we can get the corps project in place," Chuck Joyner, assistant city engineer, said.
From the Little Creek Jetty to 27th Bay Street, Joyner said it's tough for sand to want to stay on this section of the bay beach.
"We have an issue because of the Little Creek Inlet and the jetty that protects the navigation channel there," Joyner said. "That jetty even though it protects the navigation channel, it blocks the sand from making it from the Virginia Beach side over to the Norfolk side."
Like the tide, sand comes and goes from East Ocean View, and at times the city needs to step in to add to the beach.
Joyner said 2017 was the last time the city did a nourishment project for the beach and did not expect the sand to go away so quickly.
"At that time, the corps computers indicated that nourishment would probably last about nine years, we're finding that it's not lasting quite that long," Joyner said.
Residents living in Ocean View said they've noticed the area of beach in front of the dune getting narrow.
"Yeah, since the last beach replenishment a few years ago," Scott Welch, who lives nearby, said. "Yeah, especially at high tide there's almost no beach."
Over the next several weeks the city will be repurposing sand from the HRBT expansion project and bringing it to 21st Bay Street.
"It's a win-win situation they needed to get that sand out of their barge slips, and they came to us," Joyner said.
It'll cost the city about half a million dollars for the project, but residents say it is worth it to protect the homes behind the dunes and to make sure there is still a beach to enjoy this summer.
"Yes, I'm definitely in favor I think the beach is going to be so popular, especially this summer," Welch said. "There's going to be tons of people out here, so more beach to share with everyone."
Once the interim project is completed in March, the city said it will not be adding to other parts of the beach.
Instead, it is waiting on a more extensive project with the Army Corps of Engineers in the near future.
