Truckin' on the Western Branch

Currently Craney Island is less mysterious—serving as a dredged material management area overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Since 1958 the disposal area has collected dredged material from the Norfolk Harbor—a service critical to the military as well as the shipping and shipbuilding industries. The Virginia Port Authority and the Corps of Engineers are partnering in the Craney Island Eastward Expansion project that will extend the usable storage life of Craney Island for dredged materials at the same time providing a land base for construction of a new marine terminal. At one time the Corps of Engineers hoped to expand the fill area to the west of the current site. Residents in Churchland, especially those living in the River Shore area along the James River front, feared 30-foot piles of river silt dumped at their back doors. They mustered a strong protest in the 1980s, citing a devastating impact on property values (an estimated $30 million reduction in the extended neighborhood) and quality of life. They implored the Port Authority and the Corps to explore other options including costlier ocean dumping or eastward expansion of the site in answer to the Corps’ need for more storage space.

Don Comer, a 1970 Churchland High graduate, whose family lived on River Shore Road, was active in the protest.

“The offshore dump site originally planned was a real threat for Portsmouth with many home values affected,” he said. Comer is currently Director of Public Relations at the Portsmouth Partnership.

The controversy raged for years, with State Sen. Johnny S. Joannou and Del. William S. Moore also searching for ways to block the westward expansion plan.

Jeff Keever, who retired in 2013 as deputy director of the Virginia Port Authority, said, Craney Island has been a battle in more ways than militarily. In 1991 the initial objections came from the River Shore Community. During a moratorium on expansion of Craney Island, the land sat idle for four years until George Allen took office and commissioned a study that decided the expansion should go to the east not the west. According to a news story by The Virginian-Pilot writer Ida Kay Jordan, in 1996 when an estimated five million cubic yards of material was dumped on Craney Island annually, the commission’s plan seemed to satisfy everyone. The agreement provided for the construction of a new marine cargo terminal on the east side of the fill area where the Corps would continue to dump materials dredged from the Hampton Roads harbor—a plan that was projected to extend the life of the fill site and place the new piers closer to the harbor channel. Virginia International Gateway The Panama Canal expansion will double the canal’s capacity, allowing new mega ships, dubbed post-Panamax vessels, to cross the canal, forcing East Coast ports to upgrade their facilities. The new ships can carry up to 18,000 containers and sail more quickly and less expensively to the U.S. East Coast. Hampton Roads’ advantage in the shipping scramble lies in its deeper channels, proximity to the ocean and good rail connections.

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