NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — If you live in or have driven through Norfolk during a rain storm, you’ve likely seen flooding. A $10 million grant from the federal government seeks to change that.
Boosting resilience and combatting sea level rise — both are goals of the National Coastal Resilience Fund. The fund sponsors more than 100 projects across the country and adds Norfolk to the list.
The city is getting $10 million to construct a stormwater wetland at St. Paul’s Blue-Greenway to improve flood management and water quality.
Nearly $500,000 was also awarded to the Old Dominion Research Foundation to study flooding and sea level rise in Norfolk.
Carol Considine serves as the Director of Applied Projects in the Institute for Coastal Adaptation and Resilience, or ICAR, at Old Dominion University. Considine studies flooding and creates environmental solutions.
“With the money that is available from the federal government, they really want to focus on environmental justice communities and Southside Norfolk is certainly one of those,” Considine told 10 On Your Side. “But I think also, we’re really at ICAR trying to focus on areas of need. And and so we saw that need and decided that we could go in there and really establish this relationship with the community to work with them.”
Mujde Erten-Unal, who teaches Civil and Environmental Engineering at ODU, is the principal investigator of the project.
“We went to Neon District, we went to Hague, part of Norfolk,” Erten-Unal said. “We did some studies on Huntersville, same type of adaptive design solutions, Newton Creek and Aberdeen Gardens.”
Those in the community who are interested can also get involved.
“We are also paying community members when they come to meetings and and give us feedback on the designs and talk to us about what they want,” Considine said. “We’ve included green infrastructure training for high school students and we are supporting existing youth groups.”
ODU, Hampton University, Wetlands Watch and the city of Norfolk are working together on the flood project.