The Chesapeake Bay Foundation had been eyeing Pleasure House Point for an outdoor teaching center—attracted not only by the land but by the community that had grown up around protecting the river.
shellfi sh harvesting there was banned. In the years since, Virginia Beach has spent more than $100 million to con- trol pollution. Thanks to this and other water protection efforts, the oyster beds are now in resurgence. So why risk new pollution from waterside development and fi ll in wetlands that help keep the river clean? “The potential for restoring wetlands at Pleasure House Point dwarfs all of our other opportunities,” says Karen Forget, director of Lynnhaven River NOW, a group organized in 2002 to clean up the river and restore the oyster beds.
THE GREEN LINING Through 2007 the fate of the land seemed to hang in limbo. First Virginia Beach denied the developer’s wet- lands permits, then the state overruled the city’s deci- sion. At the same time, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), nationally known for its environmental educa- tion programs, had been eyeing Pleasure House Point as a possible site for a state-of-the-art outdoor teaching center. The foundation was attracted not only by the land but by the community that had grown up around protecting the river. In 2008, as real estate values sagged, the foundation noticed that the developers had missed a quarterly tax payment. “Let’s see if there’s an opportu- nity there,” William Baker, the foundation’s president, told Christy Everett, its tidewater Virginia director. With some 200,000 members and a multimillion-
dollar annual budget, CBF has as much clout as any regional environmental group. But it didn’t have the real estate expertise needed to acquire land for an educational center at Pleasure House Point. So its leaders contacted The Trust for Public Land, with whom they had partnered on previous projects. Local TPL project manager Lynda Frost met with Virginia Beach officials, who were all for protecting Pleasure House Point. But even in a real estate downturn, a likely multimillion-dollar price tag for the rare water- front parcel seemed insurmountable.
THE FANCIEST OYSTER
Nothing is more iconic to the Chesapeake Bay than Crassostrea virginica, the eastern oyster. And no Chesapeake Bay oysters were more famous than those from the Lynnhaven River, a tidal estuary at the south end of the bay. Noted for their size and exquisite taste, Lynnhavens, or Lynnhaven “fancies,” were highly prized through the 19th and fi rst half of the 20th centuries. Lynnhavens were served
in New York’s fi nest restau- rants and to U.S. presidents and British royalty. It’s said that wealthy Gilded Age businessman Diamond Jim Brady once ate three dozen Lynnhavens at a sitting. And famed French actress Sarah Bernhardt received a bushel of fancies from an admirer, who kept them in salt water and fed them oatmeal during the two-week ocean crossing. And then they were all but gone. As the city of
Sarah Bernhardt
Virginia Beach grew up around the estuary, devel- opment led to sewage and stormwater pollution. Beginning in the 1960s, shellfi sh diseases rippled through the region, and by 2002, 99 percent of the Lynnhaven was closed to shellfi sh harvesting. Today, thanks to pollution control and improve- ments in water quality, the oysters are rebounding, with 40 percent of the Lynnhaven open to harvesting. Oyster reefs and sanctuaries are being restored and new ones built, and a thriving oyster farming industry has arisen—all within the city limits of the state’s larg- est urban center. The benefi ts of the Pleasure House Point conserva- tion project are many, including new public access to the bay and a new site for environmental education in a rapidly developing region. But perhaps no outcome is as potentially delicious as the continuing recovery of these renowned fancy oysters.
Turning the Tide at Pleasure House Point Feature Title 31
COURTESY OF DENI NORRED
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80