Screen shot of new camera
New link to both cameras here.
We’ve added that link in our left column too.
[Note: Original camera requires Flash installed.]
News at Pilotonline.com:
The Virginia Beach City Council voted during a special formal city council session this afternoon to approve Hansen to lead the city.
Mr Dave Hansen COVB City Manager
About Mr Hansen at VBGov.com:
. . . Dave’s career in financial, technology, infrastructure, and capital improvement management has spanned over three decades. He joined the Virginia Beach government team in April 2006 following his assignment as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Resource Management for the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command headquartered at Fort Monroe. An officer in the U.S. Army, he also held positions as commanding officer and district engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers Norfolk district; director of public works for Fort Eustis and Fort Story; senior combat engineer trainer at the Army’s National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif.; engineer battalion commander in the 1st Cavalry Division; and executive officer to the Director of the Army budget at the Pentagon. . . .
SUMMARY AS INTRODUCED:
Local regulation of driving in flooded areas; penalty. Allows localities to by ordinance prohibit driving in a flooded street in a way that damages property and creates a Class 4 misdemeanor for a violation of such ordinance. This prohibition does not apply to law-enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, or operators of Department of Transportation vehicles in the performance of their official duties.
From an email, posted unedited:
Subject: Winter Storm JONAS Update #3
My travels around the City this morning at high tide indicated the tidal flooding in the Lynnhaven watershed has been slightly higher than we estimated. Nothing I would consider greater than moderate/expected for this type weather.
Lynnhaven Colony , Bay Island and Cape Story having nuisance ponding across their usual low lying roads.PW is reacting to Jim Woods call for assistance on issue at Cape Story Ditch and evaluating decision to close the tide gates before the next high tide. Atlantic Ocean is truly angry – haven’t seen the waves that big since Irene.
Bay Beaches holding up. Grommet Island Park berm did its job. Pics attached. Central Beach District at Baltic and 21st is dry. Rode the southern roads and ditches full but little to no encroachment onto roads.
About 200 power outages in the City – down from 800 at daybreak. Mostly due to downed tree limbs arcing out transformers. This evening after 7pm the temps will slowly fall.
Winter storm JONAS is wrapping around from the northwest and will continue to pushing frozen rain, sleet and some snow our way. Expect this up to Sunday day break. Precipitation ends Sunday morn and a cold day barely getting above freezing.
PW will have teams treating our bridges. Our City has fared well. Please pass this on to your constituents. Be safe and stay dry and warm. VR Dave
Dave Hansen
Deputy City Manager
City of Virginia Beach
(757)385-4242
At VBGov.com:
We rewrote the city’s Comprehensive Plan to reflect your concerns about traffic, the environment and more.
Now we’re asking: Did we get it right? Does the revised Comprehensive Plan address the things you love and the things you want changed?
We’ve made it easy to respond. In fact, there’s an app for that — and community meetings.
Engage!
Thursday, Jan. 28 — Virginia Beach Convention Center, 1000 19th St.
To read the complete Comprehensive Plan, visit www.VBgov.com/2016compplan.
View the City of Virginia Beach Legislative Package at VBGov.com.
One example request of Virginia Legislature:
19. USE OF OYSTER LEASES FOR NAVIGATION PROJECTS
SPONSORED BY CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS, JAMES L. WOOD & JOHN E. UHRIN
| 26
Background Information:
The City has numerous rivers and tributaries that require maintenance dredging. This includes both the main channels of the Eastern and Western branches of the Lynnhaven River and multiple navigation channels serving the multitude of neighborhoods of the fully developed watershed. Not only do these waterways provide access for homeowners to utilize their waterfront property, but these navigation channels support recreational boating for residents and visitors to the City in addition to serving water-dependent local businesses and watermen. Virtually all of the coves of the Lynnhaven were developed with navigation channels.With the support of General Assembly legislation, Special Service Districts (SSDs) are being created to formulate neighborhood navigation dredging projects to reclaim those navigation channels that have filled with silt, mud and sediment foreign to the Lynnhaven’s past. Restoring navigable channels for these waterfront neighborhoods is a critical goal for the City, and the Navigation SSD program provides a venue to accomplish this. The silt, mud and sediment that have inundated this body of water contribute to degradation of the water quality of the Lynnhaven, which is condemned or restricted to oyster production in many areas. As a result of contamination, most oyster leases are unproductive or have costly restrictions and compliance measures before a harvest can be brought to market.
Restoring navigation channels is a part of the City’s effort to cleaning up the Lynnhaven River, but the widely popular SSD neighborhood navigation dredging program has been placed at risk due to 2014 legislation barring localities from exercising eminent domain to acquire portions of oyster leases of state-owned bottomlands, even if the purpose is navigational dredging. Due to guarantees made by the Commonwealth to the holders of oyster leases, consent from the oyster lease holder is required for any dredging permit issued by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. The legal result of this requirement is that a single oyster lease holder with a nonproductive, vacant oyster bed in a condemned creek retains veto power over a navigation dredging project affecting hundreds of waterfront property owners and recreational boaters. The oyster leases cost $1.50 per acre/per year for a 10-year lease, and although there is a requirement that leases be worked for oyster production, there are generous exceptions for rivers like the Lynnhaven, where such production would not likely yield oysters. The proposed legislation is to promote a balance that allows the municipality and its property owners to maintain the navigation channels while providing fair treatment to active producing oyster lease holders.
Request:
The General Assembly is requested to amend the code of Virginia §28.2-618
§ 28.2-618. Commonwealth guarantees rights of renter subject to right of fishing.
| 27The Commonwealth shall guarantee to any person who has complied with ground assignment requirements the absolute right to continue to use and occupy the ground for the term of the lease, subject to:
1. Section 28.2-613;
2. Riparian rights;
3. The right of fishing in waters above the bottoms, provided (i) that no person exercising the right of fishing shall use any device which is fixed to the bottom, or which, in any way, interferes with the renter’s rights or damages the bottoms, or the oysters planted thereon, and (ii) that crab pots and gill nets which are not staked to the bottom shall not be considered devices which are fixed to the bottom unless the crab pots and gill nets are used over planted oyster beds in waters of less than four feet at mean low water on the seaside of Northampton and Accomack Counties;
4. Established fishing stands, but only if the fishing stand license fee is timely received from the existing licensee of the fishing stand and no new applicant shall have priority over the oyster lease. However, a fishing stand location assigned prior to the lease of the oyster ground is a vested interest, a chattel real, and an inheritable right which may be transferred or assigned whenever the current licensee complies with all existing laws; and
5. In navigable waters that are located in the Lynnhaven River and its creeks and tributaries, the right of navigation, including dredging projects to improve, deepen or restore existing navigation channels in areas approved by the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, so long as the person dredging designs the project to minimize affecting active, producing beds and, to the extent any such beds cannot be avoided, the dredger pays the cost of relocating the oyster material that would be disturbed or pays the holder for any losses of oysters in production in an amount to be determined by the Commission.
This change would allow the City to compensate for loss of use while allowing much needed projects to go forward.
News from WetlandsWatch.org:
The new policy is contained in an executive order issued by President Obama in January that says federal actions (think projects funded directly or in part by the federal government = highways, airports, military bases) have to take future flood risks into account.
The Executive order from January 2015:
FACT SHEET: Taking Action to Protect Communities and Reduce the Cost of Future Flood Disasters
More than 50 percent of Americans live in coastal counties, where key infrastructure and evacuation routes are increasingly vulnerable to impacts like higher sea levels, storm surges, and flooding.
News about Executive Order green lighted by Congress in recent omnibus bill:
Under Obama’s executive order, buildings must now be elevated 2 or 3 feet above the 100-year flood level (the higher standard is for “critical” infrastructure, like hospitals), or at the 500-year flood level. A third option is for federal agencies to analyze future climate change scenarios and build according to those projections, such as for sea level rise or expected heavier rain events.
Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) at FEMA.gov:
FEMA, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have produced fact sheets in response to several frequently asked questions regarding the intended scope of the President’s Federal Flood Risk Management Standard (FFRMS) and the anticipated impacts to many of the programs of these agencies.