🚨 Two Major Milestones Achieved — Army Corps Review Now Underway-Your Comments Needed

Dear Dredge the Little Wicomico Jetty Supporters,

Because of your support, this project continues to move forward.

Together, we have now achieved two major milestones:

✅ VMRC approval of Permit Application #20252813 on June 23, 2026

✅ $2.6 million in emergency dredging funding approved by VMRC on February 24, 2026

Over the past year, supporters from across Virginia have come together around a common purpose. Watermen, oyster growers, charter captains, marina operators, emergency responders, business owners, and citizens who may never have met otherwise have united to help protect one of the Chesapeake Bay's important gateways.

Your signatures, comments, letters, meetings, media outreach, and advocacy have helped demonstrate the importance of the Little Wicomico River to public safety, maritime commerce, working waterfronts, emergency response, and Chesapeake Bay access.

With two major milestones now achieved, we are moving into the next phase of the project: federal review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

⚓ Why This Project Matters

The Little Wicomico River entrance is a federally authorized navigation channel and an important gateway to the Chesapeake Bay.

The river supports:

📍 More than 123 miles of shoreline

📍 Approximately 800 docks, piers, ramps, and waterfront facilities serving thousands of residents, businesses, and visitors

📍 Three marinas

📍 Several 3rd, 4th, and 5th generation commercial watermen and seafood processing businesses

📍 Charter fishing operations

📍 More than 650 acres of oyster aquaculture and restoration-related activities

📍 Smith Point Sea Rescue emergency responders

🌊 For over 400 years, the Little Wicomico River has served as a safe harbor for vessels seeking refuge from changing weather and rough conditions on the Chesapeake Bay.

Located where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay, this area is known for rapidly changing weather, rough seas, strong winds, and powerful currents that can challenge even experienced mariners. Whether facing a summer squall, mechanical trouble, or deteriorating weather, generations of watermen, recreational boaters, and Chesapeake Bay travelers have relied on the Little Wicomico River jetty as a safe harbor. 

🚤 Today, severe shoaling has made access increasingly difficult, and often impossible.

Smith Point Sea Rescue—an all-volunteer marine rescue organization serving hundreds of square miles of Chesapeake Bay waters—was forced to relocate its most capable rescue vessel approximately 10 miles away, adding about 45 minutes to response times in good weather, because reliable access through the entrance channel could no longer be assured.

When emergencies occur on the water, those additional minutes can make a critical difference.

Just last week, two experienced boat captains in transit took a chance, braving possible grounding in the shallow, meandering channel to enter the jetty during strong winds to get out of the severe weather conditions on the Bay.  

For generations, the Little Wicomico River has been a place where watermen make a living, families enjoy the Chesapeake Bay, businesses welcome visitors, and mariners seek shelter when conditions turn dangerous. Preserving safe access to the river means preserving an important part of the Chesapeake Bay's maritime heritage and future.

🪨 The project also includes beneficial placement of dredged material south of the jetties to help address severe erosion occurring adjacent to the south wall of the jetty structure. Restoring these areas through sand placement and planting will help improve shoreline resilience and protect the south jetty wall.

Without action, the Little Wicomico River risks losing the very qualities that made it valuable for generations: safe navigation, reliable access to the Chesapeake Bay, and its role as a harbor of refuge when weather conditions deteriorate.

📣 The Ask

The Army Corps is currently accepting public comments.

Project Reference: NAO-2025-02108

Comment Portal:

https://rrs.usace.army.mil/rrs/public-notices?district=NAO&search=NAO-2025-02108

Please take a few minutes to tell the Corps why this project matters to you. Whether your connection is boating, fishing, crabbing, oystering, emergency response, local business, tourism, or simply preserving safe access to the Chesapeake Bay, your voice can help demonstrate the broad public support behind this project.

Every comment matters.

A sample comment is provided below for anyone who would like to use it as a starting point.

Thank you again for helping move this effort forward.

Together, we are one step closer to restoring safe navigation through the Little Wicomico River entrance and preserving this important Chesapeake Bay harbor for future generations.

⚓ Let's Dredge — and Repair — the Little Wicomico Jetty!

✍️ Sample Comment for the Army Corps

Re: NAO-2025-02108 – Little Wicomico River Maintenance Dredging Project

I strongly support approval of the Little Wicomico River maintenance dredging project.

The Little Wicomico River entrance is a federally authorized navigation channel that provides an important connection between the Chesapeake Bay and the Little Wicomico River. Severe shoaling has reduced navigable depths and created growing safety concerns for commercial watermen, oyster growers, charter captains, marina operators, recreational boaters, and emergency responders.

While this project will improve navigation, support maritime commerce, and benefit working waterfronts, it is fundamentally a public safety project.

The Little Wicomico River entrance lies just south of the seven-mile-wide mouth of the Potomac River, from Virginia to Point Lookout, Maryland, where the waters of one of the East Coast's largest rivers meet the Chesapeake Bay. The combination of long expanses of open-water fetch, strong winds, powerful changing cross currents from the outflow of the Potomac and Chesapeake Bay tides, and rapidly developing weather can create challenging conditions for mariners, making access to a safe harbor especially important. During these events, reliable access to a protected harbor is not simply a convenience—it is a matter of public safety

An access point to the Chesapeake Bay for over 400 years, the Little Wicomico River Jetty supports more than 123 miles of shoreline, approximately 800 docks, piers, ramps, and waterfront facilities, three marinas including two with boat repair and a marine railway facility, several 3,4,and 5th generation seafood businesses, charter operations, and more than 650 acres of oyster aquaculture and restoration-related activities. Reliable access through the entrance channel is important not only to the local economy, but also to the broader Chesapeake Bay maritime community.

The consequences of the shoaling are already being felt. Smith Point Sea Rescue, an all-volunteer marine rescue organization serving hundreds of square miles of Chesapeake Bay waters, was forced to relocate its most capable rescue vessel approximately 10 miles away because reliable access through the entrance channel could no longer be assured. This change increases response times in an area where minutes can matter and where Coast Guard stations are located many miles away.

I also support the beneficial placement of dredged material south of the jetties. Significant erosion has occurred adjacent to the federal navigation structure, and restoring these shoreline areas will help improve shoreline resilience.

This project will restore safe navigation, strengthen public safety, support working waterfronts, benefit maritime commerce, and help preserve a safe harbor that has served commercial, recreational, and emergency-response mariners throughout the Chesapeake Bay region for more than four centuries.

For these reasons, I respectfully urge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to approve this project.

Thank you for your consideration.