Tangier Island fights for its very existence - island in Chesapeake Bay is losing 9 acres a year

[underpants]

See map below
I went there in 1980 - kids in Alice Cooper t-shirts speaking in an Old English dialect. There was a newborn baby, a refrigerator, and a washing machine on the boat with us tourists. Amazing place. BTW- they overfished the crabs....but still this is sad.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/mgmedia/image/0/354/166109/tang17/

Now a few gravestones are the most notable pieces of Uppards that remain. The bay has claimed most everything else — the result of the region's rising sea levels and sinking land — and it's creeping ever closer to washing the whole place away.

The facts are this: Tangier is losing jobs and population — the island once had more than 1,000 residents but now has fewer than 500 — and land itself. By one estimate, the low-lying island, which is more marsh than solid ground anyway, is shrinking at the rate of 9 acres a year.

Meantime, Eskridge and Rep. Scott Rigell, R-2nd, who represents Tangier, met in the spring to float the idea of sinking old barges off the coast of Tangier — not terribly unlike the World War II-era concrete ships that were partially sunk to form a breakwater (as well as a habitat, as it turned out, for fish and birds) off the shore of what is now Kiptopeke State Park, near the southern point of the Eastern Shore. The barges would be donated at no cost to taxpayers, Rigell said.

They can put whatever they want along the shoreline," Hershner (Va. Institue of Marine Science) said Friday. "They're all going underwater eventually."







A

[Dappleganger]

1. They are very unique people, sad to see it disappearing.

Back in the 1980's we lived in a home in Hampton, VA and the neighbor behind us was from Tangier Island. He worked in the shipyard most of the time, but on his off time he'd go back to to the island to fish with his family. He was a shy person at first, but once you got to know him he was much more talkative. The most unique accent I'd ever heard, and his children (raised in Hampton) picked up quite a bit of his accent when they were smaller but lost it more as they grew older. That guy was a real gem of a neighbor...if you ever needed any handyman help, he was right there to lend assistance.

[underpants]

8. Y

York County here.

[Dappleganger]

9. Yay!

We lived in Hampton, specifically Wythe. I grew up in VA Beach and lived there most of my life.

[Blue_Tires]

2. I wouldn't rely on Rigell for any real ideas...

[ixion]

3. "They're all going underwater eventually."

That statement can be applied to so many things these days. :(

[sfpcjock]

4. Nat Geo said that we are losing a South Carolina-sized piece

...of wetland now every year. In half a century the earth could pass the tipping point at which the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermohaline_circulation stops and the world essentially frys. Energy interests don't want this to be known so they keep buying every spare moment of TV time to attempt to control the message.

[fishbulb703]

5. thats the problem of living in a littoral enviroment, sad to see it go

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. Maybe they can take these off the Navy's hands

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x614253

Those pictures are devastating.

[dgibby]

7. I've been to Tangier.

Great place, almost frozen in time. Food was wonderful. I still have the cookbook I got there. Hate to see what's happening it them.