BY TED SHOCKLEY, Eastern Shore Post —
The Accomack County Board of Supervisors has reversed course on a decision last month to remove the county’s seaside from Chesapeake Bay Act protections.
Supervisors opened a meeting on Wednesday, July 15, by voting unanimously to ask the Accomack Planning Commission to make a recommendation on the issue. Supervisors then will revisit the matter.
The Accomack County Board of Supervisors voted in 2009 to extend the protections to the seaside of the county, lengthly, and hard-won process.
Supervisors had removed the seaside in June while approving new state Bay Act regulations without even a public hearing on doing so.
During Wednesday’s meeting, the nine supervisors offered no rationale of why the seaside had been removed from the protections.
The removal prompted a pushback from residents who said water quality protections should be in place on both the bayside and seaside areas of the county.
Supervisor Donald Hart Jr. made the motion to redo the process.
Speakers who attended the meeting thanked the county for deciding to keep the seaside protections.
Sue Mastyl, of Harborton, speaking on behalf of Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore, said the removal had been “treated as an administrative change” and said the “seaside deserves the same protections as the bayside.”
She said wetlands loss would accelerate with the change.
“I fail to see the logic in this unless it is to encourage development where it shouldn’t be,” she said.
She also mentioned the importance of seaside Bay Act protections to the aquaculture industry, which brings in millions to the county and helps sustain working waterfronts.
Jim McGowan, of Onancock, also spoke, citing his career as a planning and zoning official with the county.
Without the Bay Act protections on the seaside, there was nothing the county could do when a property owner began to cut down trees on the waterfront, he said.
“Please help me understand what prompted this change,” McGowan said.
He said eliminating the Bay Act protections from the seaside would make Accomack County’s eastern coast susceptible to waterfront areas “like Delaware or New Jersey.”
Further, he said the water quality protection measures are critical to aquaculture, recreation, and other pursuits in seaside waters.
He also said changes cannot be made to such acts without having the proposed amendments — like removing the seaside — specifically advertised.
He said the seaside was added to the Bay Act after a lengthy technical review and public participation process — a process that was essentially wiped out in June when supervisors made their vote.
