WACHAPREAGUE, Va.
The Atlantic Ocean streams through an inlet about four miles east of this Eastern Shore town, and hardly a week goes by without Rick Kellam motoring a skiff out that way.
Often, hes carrying families or students on ecotours.
But a lot of days I come here by myself, he said. I just gotta get out here.
Lately, its not just the heart tug of the ocean that draws him. Its also curiosity. The inlet, which cuts between the two barrier islands in front of Wachapreague, has been getting wider.
Much wider.
Its such a rapid acceleration you can almost watch it happen on a daily basis, Kellam said.
Early on a December afternoon, he slowed his boat to a crawl in the middle of the gap.
Here, let me show you something, he said, pointing one hand, then the other, toward the opposite shores, each easily a half-mile away. That is the south end of Cedar Island. And that is the north end of Parramore Island.
A half-century ago, when he was a boy, you could almost throw a hardball between the two.
The inlet has widened by more than a thousand yards just in the past few years because the islands, especially Cedar, are shrinking. So are some of the dozen other islands in Virginias barrier chain, which stretches for about 75 miles along the Eastern Shore.
Scientists offer plenty of possible explanations. Among them are a speedup in sea level rise, an increase in damaging storms, shifts in the south-running offshore currents of sand that nourish the islands.
Coastal geologists point out that these shorelines long have been among the most dynamic on the East Coast, reconfigured constantly by wind and waves as the islands rolled toward the mainland. So whats happening now may not be especially dramatic when viewed over the thousands of years since they began to form.
Still, Kellam and some other people who travel around the islands think the changes have come faster in recent years.
You can just feel it, he said.
Choose the name of a barrier island from the dropdown below to play a timelapse showing how its topography on the Eastern Shore has changed since 1984.
What makes this transformation even more striking is the response. While another chain of barrier islands, North Carolinas Outer Banks, wages a continuous battle to protect its tourism industry by holding back the sea, the official strategy on the Eastern Shore is much simpler:
Let nature have its way, no matter how violent.
The federal and state wildlife agencies with island holdings have shown no interest in building up beaches or intervening in any other way.
Thats also the approach of The Nature Conservancy, which owns all or part of 14 Eastern Shore islands, including some between the barriers and the mainland.
Jill Bieri, director of the conservancy's Virginia Coast Reserve, said Beach replenishments would be unsustainable and have too many unpredictable effects. To explain its position, several years ago the conservancy began customizing an Internet tool that focuses on the effects of climate change on the Eastern Shore. The most recent addition to it was an app, released in January and based on research from scientists at a half-dozen universities and a century and a halfs worth of maps.
It showedthat the islands have been reshaping constantly and that while the changes have been more dramatic in some places in recent decades, not all of the barriers are shrinking. A few are actually getting bigger.
Until we started doing this work, Bieri said, we never really talked in public about how were managing our islands in a natural way. We actually say that now. With confidence.
Nevertheless, even the conservancy's outlook grows bleaker as more climate change models forecast an acceleration in sea level rise and even more frequent storms. Under the most extreme scenario modeled by the conservancy's Coastal Resilience website a sea level rise of 7 feet some of the islands would be all but gone by 2100.
The conservancy touts living shorelines of oyster reefs and marsh grasses as a defense. Others, reading between the lines, detect another message: that it may be time for some people to start thinking about moving back from the water.
Outside of scientists, even big changes on the barriers dont get noticed much beyond the Eastern Shore. That partly may be because so much attention has been devoted to an island off the Shores other side. Tangier, in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, has grabbed headlines worldwide as some experts have predicted its residents could be forced out by rising seas within 50 years.
Nobody lives on Virginias ocean islands. The last year-round community, the village of Broadwater on Hog Island, vanished after a rapid erosion of its shoreline chased residents to the mainlandin the 1930s and '40s. After that, the only colonization was on Cedar, where dozens of vacation homes were built as late as the 1990s. One by one, the sea claimed them. The last was torched by its owners three years ago before the ocean could sweep it away.
The Nature Conservancy started buying up most of the island chain in the late 1960s to protect irreplaceable habitat for migrating birds. ItsVirginia Coast Reserverepresents the Eastern Seaboards longest stretch of coastal wilderness.
The conservancy was moved to action and subterfuge, using front companies to shield its identity in some cases after developers hatched a grand scheme for three of the southernmost islands: Smith, Myrtle and Ship Shoal. They had planned high-rise hotels, thousands of homes, a golf course, even an airstrip, with bridges and causeways stitching it all together.
Its hard for me to wrap my brain around those islands being developed now, or imagine how much the local, state and federal governments might now be spending to keep everything from washing away, Bieri said.
Some of theislands, because they wouldnt have been allowed to migrate naturally, might not have even existed anymore.
Now, the only developed island in the chain is Wallops. Its home to aNASA rocket-launch facility,and the only Virginia barrier on which theres been a concerted effort to hold back the ocean. NASA has spent tens of millions of dollars there in recent years on beach renourishment efforts.
A few of the remaining islands are state or national wildlife preserves, and theres an oft-visited national seashoreand a public beach on Assateague, a barrier that stretches across the state line into Maryland. Its Virginia portion too has been battered repeatedly by the Atlantic, and federal officials plan within the next decade to move the recreational area several miles north where the island is wider.
Marsh grasses are now missing from what were healthy wetlands just a few years ago near Wachapreague, seen on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016.
To most Shore residents these days, the barrier islands are like neighbors at the far end of the street familiar but not encountered often enough to know well.
The exceptions are mainly folks on the seaside, in towns like Chincoteague and Wachapreague and on farms and in hamlets in between. Like the rest of the mid-Atlantic, theyve witnessed some of the nations highest sea level rise in recent decades a rate approaching 2 feet when extended out over a century.
When islands shrink and inlets widen, or when barriers become more susceptible to breaches as they narrow from erosion, its no wonder they look out toward the Atlantic and worry: Will the next big storm tide be the one that surges through the gaps and pounds them?
In January of last year, Chincoteague got a salty taste of that when a noreaster carved a few inlets into a thin stretch of Assateague, the barrier to its east. The openings filled in within weeks, but not before a scare.
We got a call in the middle of the night from the 911 center there, saying, basically, Hey, were starting to see some flooding on the south end of Chincoteague, " said Jeff Orrock, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Wakefield.
The barrier island breached and you had all this extra water coming in to Toms Cove between Chincoteague and Assateague, Orrock said. The weather service hadnt factored in the possibility of breaches in its tide forecasts for the town.
In the end, there was much more damage from high winds than water, but the storm reminded Chincoteagues 2,900 residents of how imperiled they could be.
Lately, theyve also been keeping a closer watch on Chincoteague Inlet, which stretches between Assateague and Wallops islands. The inlet has grown wider in recent years as Assateagues far southern tip has curled eastward into a larger and larger fist of sand.
With the broader opening comes an increased risk of a storm surge driving enough water into the bay to swamp or damage the causeway connecting Chincoteague to the Eastern Shore mainland.
Chincoteague is itself an island. In fact, it was a barrier island until the mid-1800s, when Assateague extended so far south that it shielded Chincoteague from the ocean. The Atlantic still feels awfully close, however, to the town thats famous for itsannual pony swim.
Mayor Arthur Leonard said he frets most about a hurricane barreling up the coast: Because the inlet faces south, a "wind coming right from the ocean, its impacting Chincoteague.
Congress authorized a study of Chincoteagues vulnerability to flooding and erosion as part of a comprehensive infrastructure bill passed in December. Its not clear yet whether there will be funding for the work.
The waterfront of Wachapreague, photographed on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016.
About 35 miles down the coast, Wachapreague has its own set of worries.
Between that town and the inlet that separates Cedar and Parramore islands are vast meadows of salt marsh a lush, scenic backdrop for travelers lured by road signs to the self-proclaimed Little City by the Sea. The grasses shelter and provide nurseries for numerous fish, crabs and birds, and they filter pollutants.
Perhaps most importantly to Wachapreague, theyre a nice speed bump for ocean waves headed toward shore, said Chris Hein, an assistant professor at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who recently co-authored a paper on the salt marshes behind Virginias barrier islands.
But when inlets like Wachapreagues widen, the marshes outermost edges are chipped away faster by tides, Hein said. As Cedars south tip has disintegrated, the rest of the island has been migrating more rapidly toward the mainland. Cedar has been blazing westward at an average of more than 40 feet a year in the past decade, claiming marsh that couldnt keep pace with the push of sediment from waves rolling over the island. Its one of the fastest-moving shorelines on the East Coast.
Fred Janci, Wachapreagues mayor, said the towns 220 or so residents track weather forecasts more intently these days.
There is more conversation about the loss of Cedar Island and what can be done about it, he said. Still, I dont think people are talking about this as much as they probably should.
Wachapreague's vulnerability will only grow if sea level rise speeds up in the decades ahead. Some forecast models' worst-case scenarios show much of the town permanently under water by the end of the century.
Government officials have been looking for ways to address theflooding risk. One proposal, from the Army Corps of Engineers, includes using spoils from the dredging of navigational channels to replenish marsh and build new marsh area on the back side of Cedar.
Known as a beneficial uses project, it calls for the state to come up with a third of the estimated $9.5 million cost. Its far from a done deal. But if Cedars southern tip keeps receding as fast as it has been lately, the project might gain some urgency.
John Joeckel, a former Wachapreague council member, chairs a waterways committee for the Shores two counties, Accomack and Northampton. He thinks the Wachapreague proposal could be the springboard for other such projects and says the Shores political leaders should be thinking even bigger.
We need to discuss a specific strategic plan for the islands and the area behind the islands, Joeckel said. Its got to be the whole length of the Shore. And were going to have to spend money to safeguard the seaside communities.
A storm surge from a hurricane could ravage Wachapreague, he said. It could happen next year. Forget about 50 years from now.
Marsh grasses are now missing from what were healthy wetlands just a few years ago near Wachapreague, seen on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016. Directly behind the boat is Wachapreague Inlet with the northern tip of Parramore Island to the right. Sea level rise is taking a toll on the wetlands, exposing the Eastern Shore to damage from the ocean waves.
Some Eastern Shore political leaders have suggested pumping sand mined from the ocean onto some of the islands, as a way to shore them up and give more shelter to the seaside.
Beach replenishments are commonplace up and down the East Coast, including in Virginia Beach. But theyre expensive, and one storm can wash the new sand away.
That was a lesson quickly learned on Wallops, the only Virginia barrier so far to have been renourished. Since the 1940s, NASA and its predecessor agency tried everything from a timber bulkhead to boulder seawalls to hold back the ocean. Everythingfailed, and the space agencyturned to beach widening in 2012.
Two months after it finished the work, Hurricane Sandy hit. The wider beach did its job, but enough sand was lost that NASA rushed through an emergency re-replenishment, years before the next one had been planned. It has spent more than $50 million on the recent projects and related work.
The agency could justify the re-do and the followup renourishments itsplanning because there's a lot invested at Wallops: $1 billion in infrastructure deemed critical to national security and innovation.
On most of the other islands, theres little to protect except wildlife habitat, and theres hasn't been much evidence so far that bird populations the key focus have suffered overall from the recent changes.
Some species, like piping plovers and oystercatchers, like to nest on beaches that have been scoured by overwash. Their numbers on the islands have increased, said Ruth Boettcher, a state wildlife biologist.
Boettcher has stepped foot on practically every island along the Eastern Shore and said the biggest change shes seen is not loss of land area. Its loss of elevation as big waves from more frequent storms knock down dune after dune. As the islands flatten, they roll even faster to the west.
Coastal geologists like Hein also have been trodding the islands more often lately, and say what attracts them are the many mysteries that the barriers still hold. Though theyre among the most-studied in the world, everything from their age to how theyre affected by alterations in the movement of sand offshore still isnt wellunderstood.
Hein and Michael Fenster, a geologist at Randolph-Macon College, especially want to spend more time studying Assateagues bulging south tip, known as Fishing Point. They think that as it juts farther, it may be capturing more sand drifting southward alongside the island and starving it from barriers farther down the chain. If thats the case, that could increase the erosion of some islands to the south.
Theres also the possibility of Assateagues south end eventually breaking off into an island of its own. The effects of that could be dramatic all along the coast.
Wetlands near Wachapreague, photographed on Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2016.
One morning last spring, Bieri and a couple of other conservancy employees stepped onto a boat and headed forthe inlet between the south end of Parramore Island and the north end of Hog Island, both conservancy-owned. This inlet has widened, too, but not nearly as much as the inlet at Parramores other end.
Bieri pointed to a marshy area behind Hog, which has expanded in recent years.
Thats one of places where the islands have built up, she said.
Every island is behaving differently, depending on its orientation, depending on its source of sand and depending on the way the currents move around the island, Bieri explained before the trip.
The variability makes it difficult to generalize about how the island chain will look even just a few decades from now, she said.
But we still have this system that was designed by nature, this natural infrastructure, and its still protecting the coast and though perhaps not as well as it once had, still better, she said, than anything that might be devised by humans.
Also, because the barriers have remained natural, she said, we have incredible water quality in the coastal bays. We have a huge aquaculture industry because of that amazing water quality. Thats a story you dont hear in coastal areas around the world anymore.
The 63-year-old Kellam, whose ancestors include some of the last residents of Hog Island, said he supports The Nature Conservancys vow to let nature take its course: Theyve done a wonderful job.
Still, he sometimes worries about the changes on the barriers.
Ive been going to these islands since I was old enough to walk, he said, and Ive never seen in all my years anything like what has occurred in the last 10.
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Some Virginia barrier islands are shrinking by the day: "You can just feel it" - Virginian-Pilot