Shoreline Situation Report Mathews County, Virginia

W&M ScholarWorks Reports 1975 Shoreline Situation Report Mathews County, Virginia Carl H. Hobbs III Virginia Institute of Marine Science Gary F. Anderson Virginia Institute of Marine Science Robert J. Byrne Virginia Institute of Marine Science John M. Zeigler Virginia Institute of Marine Science Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/reports Part of the Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Natural Resources Management and Policy Commons, and the Water Resource Management Commons Recommended Citation Hobbs, C. H., Anderson, G. F., Byrne, R. J., & Zeigler, J. M. (1975) Shoreline Situation Report Mathews County, Virginia. Special Report In Applied Marine Science and Ocean Engineering No. 77. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William & Mary. https://doi.org/10.21220/V5W44B This Report is brought to you for free and open access by W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Reports by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Shoreline Situation Report MATHEWS COUNTY, VIRGINIA - I ;· I I , f Supported by the National Science Foundation, Research Applied to National Needs Program NSF Grant Nos. GI 34869 and GI 38973 to the Chesapeake Research Consortium, Inc. Published With Funds Provided to the Commonwealth by the Office of Coastal Zone Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Grant No. 04-5-158-50001 Chesapeake Research Consortium Report Number 12 Special Report In Applied Marine Science and Ocean Engineering Number 77 of the VIRGINIA INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE Gloucester Point, Virginia 23062 1975 Shoreline Situation Report MATHEWS COUNTY, VIRGINIA Prepared by: Carl H. Hobbs ill and Gary L. Anderson Robert J. Byrne John M. Zeigler Project Supervisors: Robert J. Byrne John M. Zeigler Supported by the National Science Foundation, Research Applied to National Needs Program NSF Grant Nos. GI 34869 and GI 38973 to the Chesapeake Research Consortium, Inc. Published With Funds Provided to the Commonwealth by the Office of Coastal Zone Management, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Grant No. 04-5-158-50001 Chesapeake Research Consortium Report Number 12 Special Report In Applied Marine Science and Ocean Engineering Number 77 of the VIRGINIA INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE William J. Hargis Jr., Director Gloucester Point, Virginia 23062 1975 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE PAGE CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 FIGURE A: Shoreland components 5 1 • 1 Purposes and goals 2 FIGURE B: Marsh types 5 1 .2 Acknowledgements 2 FIGURE 1: Cobbs Creek air photo 13 FIGURE 2: Bridge from Gwynn Island to mainland 13 CHAPTER 2: APPROACH USED AND ELEMENTS CONSIDERED 3 FIGURE 3: Composite photo of Gwynn Island 13 2.1 Approach to the problem 4 FIGURE 4: Cherry Point, Gwynn Island 13 2.2 Characteristics of the shorelands included 4 FIGURE 5: Chesapeake Bay shore of Gwynn Island 14 FIGURE 6: Sandy Point and Milford Haven 14 CHAPTER 3: PRESENT SHORELINE SITUATION OF MATHEWS COUNTY 9 FIGURE 7: Rigby Island and Whites Creek 14 3.1 The shorelands of Mathews County 10 FIGURE 8: Bethel Beach and Rigby Island 14 3.2 Shore erosion processes, patterns, and defenses 10 FIGURE 9: Garden Creek Inlet 14 3.3 Potential shorelands uses 11 FIGURE 10: Bethel Beach near Onemo 15 FIGURE 11: New Point Comfort and old New Point Lighthouse 15 CHAPTER 4: SUMMARIES AND MAPS OF MATHEWS COUNTY 31 FIGURE 12: Put In Creek 1 5 4.1 Segment and subsegment summaries 33 FIGURE 13: Village of Mobjack 15 4.2 Segment and subsegment descriptions 37 MAPS 1A-F: Mathews County 17 Segment 38 TABLE 1: Mathews County shorelands physiography 29 Segment 2 39 TABLE 2: Mathews County subsegment summary 34 Segment 3 43 MAPS 2A-C: Piankatank River 53 Segment 4 45 MAPS 3A-C: Gwynn Island 59 Segment 5 46 MAPS 4A-C: Stutts Creek - Whites Creek 65 Segment 6 47 MAPS 5A-C: Bethel Beach 71 Segment 7 48 MAPS 6A-C: New Point Comfort 77 Segment 8 49 MAPS 7A-C: Mouth of East River 83 Segment 9 50 MAPS 8A-C: Head of East River 89 4.3 Segment and subsegment maps 51 MAPS 9A-C: North River 95 CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1 Recreation mental level. The Commonwealth of Virginia has INTRODUCTION Transportation traditionally chosen to place the regulatory de Waste disposal cision processes at the county level, as much as 1 .1 PURPOSES AND GOALS Extraction of living and non-living resources possible. The Virginia Wetlands Act of 1972 It is the objective of this report to supply Aside from the above uses, the shorel~ds serve (Chapter 2.1, Title 62.1, Code of Virginia), ~or an assessment, and at least a partial integration, various ecological functions. example, provides for the establishment of County of those important shoreland parameters and char The role of planners and managers is to optimize Boards to act on applications for alterations of acteristics which will aid the planners and the the utilization of the shorelands and to minimize wetlands. Thus, our focus at county level is in managers of the shorelands in making the best de the conflicts arising from competing demands. Fur tended to interface with and to support the cisions for the utilization of this limited and thermore, once a particular use has been decided existing or pending county regulatory mechanisms very valuable resource. The report gives partic upon for a given segment of shoreland, both the conce:rning activities in the shorelands zone. ular attention to the problem of shore erosion and planners and the users want that selected use to to recommendations conce:rning the alleviation of operate in the most effective manner. A park 1.2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS the impact of this problem. In addition we have planner, for example, wants the alloted space to This report was prepared with the funds pro tried to include in our assessment some of the fulfill the design most efficiently. We hope that vided by the Research Applied to National Needs potential uses of the shoreline, particularly with the results of our work are useful to the planner (RANN) program of the National Science Foundation respect to recreational use, since such infor in designing the beach by pointing out the techni administered through the Chesapeake Research mation could be of considerable value in the way cal feasibility of altering or enhancing the pres Consortium, Inc. George Dawes, Gene Silberho:rn, a particular segment of coast is perceived by ent configuation of the shore zone. Alternately, and Jim Mercer of the VIMS Wetlands Section con potential users. if the use were residential development, we should tributed many useful ideas and criticisms. Gaynor The basic advocacy of the authors in the pre hope our work would be useful in specifying the Williams, David Byrd, and Dennis Owen assisted with paration of the report is that the use of shore shore erosion problem and by indicating defenses data reduction and preparation. Peter Rosen, Jane lands should be planned rather than haphazardly likely to succeed in containing the erosion. In Davis, Kaye Stubblefield, Russell Bradley, Joe developed in response to the short term pres summary, our objective is to provide a useful tool Gilley, Ken Thornberry, and Bill Jenkins prepared sures and interests. Careful planning could re for enlightened utilization of a limited resource, the graphics. Beth Tillage typed the manuscript. duce the conflicts which may be expected to arise the shorelands of the Commonwealth. We thank the numerous other persons in both Mary between competing interests. Shoreland utili Shorelands planning occurs either formally or land and Virginia who have criticized and commented zation in many areas of the country, and indeed inform.ally, at all levels, from the private owner upon our methods and ideas. in some places in Virginia, has proceeded in a of shorelands property to county governments, to manner such that the very elements which at planning districts and to the state and federal tracted people to the shore have been destroyed agency level. We feel our results will be useful by the lack of planning and forethought. at all these levels. Since the most basic level The major man-induced uses of the shorelands of comprehensive planning and zoning is at the are: county or city level, we have executed our report Residential, commercial, or industrial on-that level, although we realize some of the development information may be most useful at a higher govern- 2 CHAPTER 2 Approach Used and Elements Considered 3 CHAPTER 2 the subsegment. Segments are a group~g of subseg may be considered as being composed of three in APPROACH USED AND ELEMENTS CONSIDERED ments. The boundaries for segments also were se teracting physiographic elements: the fastlands, lected on physiographic units such as necks or the shore and the nearshore. A graphic classifi 2 .1 APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM peninsulas between major tidal creeks, Finally, cation based on these three elements has been de In the preparation of this report the authors the county itself is considered as a sum of shore vised so that the types for each of the three ele utilized existing information wherever possible. line segments. ments protrayed side by side on a map to provide For example, for such elements as water quality The format of presentation in the report fol the opportunity to examine joint relationships characteristics, zoning regulations, or flood haz lows a sequence from general summary statements for among the elements. As an example, the applica ard, we reviewed relevant reports by local, state, the county (Chapter 3) to tabular segment summaries tion of the system permits the user to determine or federal agencies. Much of the desired informa and finally detailed descriptions and maps for each miles of high bluff shoreland interfacing with tion, particularly with respect to erosional char subsegment (Chapter 4), The purpose in choosing marsh in the shore zone.

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