1 week Ago By Eliza Noe
The recreational beach at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge will soon move up the coast more than 2 miles as part of a plan to safeguard the public facility from erosion and storm damage. The beach, which hosts more than 1 million vacationers each year, has historically been hit hard by storm surges and sea-level rise. Major storms such as hurricanes and nor’easters sporadically and dramatically move sand from the ocean-facing side of Assateague Island to its land-facing side, into inlets and bays and onto the shores of Chincoteague.
And with the island approaching the mainland at a rate of approximately 10-13 feet per year, there’s no room to continue to move facilities to the west. “Moving the recreational beach to a more stable location north of the existing beach was the only available course of action that could conserve wildlife resources on the refuge, significantly reduce annual and long-term maintenance costs and protect the viability of the local economy,” said the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which owns and operates the refuge. The current recreational beach will remain open this summer and until the construction until the new beach is complete.
Construction for the roads and parking areas begins this week and will continue through the fall of this year. Visitor amenities and routes to the beach will start construction in the fall, and those are expected to be finished in April 2026. Once completed, the new beach will be about a mile long — similar to the size of the original beach — with parking spaces for 961 vehicles and RV space.
Even with the shoreline movement, the service said the new location on the eastern side of the island could support the new recreational beach for at least 25 years. Common issues after storms on the East Coast include repeated damage to boardwalks and parking areas, which are prone to flood and destruction. Even in moderate storm systems like Winter Storm Jonas, which dumped more than 2 feet of snow on the East Coast in 2016, the beach’s parking lot can be destroyed.
Jonas caused $600,000 in damages and long-term closures, and according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, more than $15 million has been spent on storm recovery for the recreational beach since 2003. The relocation of the recreational beach is years in the making. In 2015, the project was included in the refuge’s Comprehensive Conservation Plan.
The Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service submitted grant proposals to fund the relocation, but those were unsuccessful. In 2023, the U.S.
Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration announced the $17.7 million award as part of its Nationally Significant Federal Lands and Tribal Transportation Projects Program. Funding for the program comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“Once the new recreational beach facilities are completed and open, the current beach will be managed as natural beach, dune and saltmarsh habitats,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said.
“We anticipate that working with nature will allow for the natural barrier island process to occur, creating habitat for threatened and at-risk species and offering protections to the local community from future storms.” Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.
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