On the Chesapeake Bay, just below the mouth of the Potomac River, is a working river for watermen, oyster farmers, charter boats, and a safe haven for sailors. It’s the Little Wicomico.
Smith Point Sea Rescue, an all-volunteer rescue squad, is based there.
"The confluence of the bay, the Little Wicomico and the mouth of the Potomac River. Some people call them confused waters but it is a challenging area to boat and some people get into trouble there," notes Sandra Maynard. "That’s why Smith Point Sea Rescue is based in that area too, because a lot of calls come right out there near at Smith Point. They can just go right out of the jetty and reach people."
Maynard lives on the river in Northumberland County. She says the Army Corps of Engineers has maintained the channel and adjacent jetties into the Little Wicomico for nearly 100 years.
"When the Bay had the Great Hurricane in the 1930’s, the Army Corps of Engineers built the jetty structure in order to maintain the opening because of the economic impact."
Last dredged by the Corps in 2014, the channel has been filling in, threatening the local economy, and the rescue squad’s ability to do their job.
Part of the problem, along with rising sea levels there are more frequent and furious storms. Last year, a storm breached one of two jetties that keep the channel open. At one point, an expert boat captain nearly ran aground.
The Little Wicomico is in Maryland waters. Jo Ann Grundy is the navigation section program manager of the Army Corps of Engineers' Baltimore Division.
"The Little Wicomico, we didn't have any funding for that when they started asking us if we could help them out with the dredging," Grundy says.
Maynard and other residents pressed the county for help. But the cost was millions. Too much for a rural fishing and farming community of about 12,000 people, where 12% live in poverty.
So, the county turned to the Northern Neck District Planning Commission. Twenty-one commissions were established by the Virginia General Assembly in 1969 to help counties.
"Historically, when a waterway needed dredging, the counties would go to the congressman and request an earmark, if the Corps engineer didn't have the money within their normal operating budget to do this. Around 2010, the Congress weren't doing earmarks anymore," remembers Northern Neck Executive Director Jerry Davis. "And I know when Rob Wittman became congressman, he told the counties here 'You're not going to be able to come to me as congressman and request special appropriations, earmarks to do dredging projects any longer. So, you all need to be prepared.'"
Grundy says the Corps prioritizes funding to channels with greater economic impacts like the deeper channels used for industry around the bay. Not much is left for the 90 or so shallow channels in Maryland and Virginia.
"The cost really increased significantly during the pandemic," according to Grundy. "But a lot of the costs have started to come down to some degree. But it seems like the dredging, that's not the case. There's just such a demand and just a limited supply. And we're always struggling with trying to get even our own enterprise vessels that the Corps of Engineers owns and operates to get out to dredge channels."
And the Northern Neck is competing with two other planning districts on the Chesapeake Bay for money— the Middle Peninsula and the Eastern Shore.
"If I were in their shoes, I would knock on every door I had access to because there's really not a guarantee that your elected official is going to be able to have the pull that you need to get that funding," Grundy says, "because everybody's competing with such a limited pot of money."