City Council Meeting~

Last Night: Shirley Jones once again gave a moving speech to City Council in favor of rebuilding the Deep Creek pier. Though the meeting ran long, she patiently waited until her name was called. The applause for her effort was great. Her speech follows.
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Good evening, Mayor Frank and Council Members. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you.

My name is Shirley Jones and I have lived in our present Woodmere neighborhood since 1957. My husband and I have raised three children who have become good members of society, and I would like to leave my 3 children and 16 grandchildren a legacy of integrity.

I feel that the elected members of the City council from the central district and the City of Newport News have failed to live up to their words and deeds in the matter of Warwick County to honor all agreements, and there was an agreement with the Melzer family to keep the pier in good condition for all citizens and the watermen, just as there was with the Federal Core of Engineers and the state. I understand that the City of Newport News has accepted money from the state to keep the pier in good repair. Instead you have torn it down. You have failed to honor your agreements with The County of Warwick, with the State of Virginia, with the United States Federal Government and last but not least, the people who elected you, the citizens of Newport News.

I am deeply disturbed by our total lack of consideration for the watermen of this Hampton Roads Area. I consider myself at fault for not studying the history sooner and standing in defense of the watermen and citizens affected by the actions of Council. We have taken away their promised free protected area to dock their boats and given it to businessmen and what i call “fat cats.” The watermen are not fairly represented here because they go to work between 2 and 3 am. They are sleeping now so they can get up to go to work tomorrow!

I was at the City Council meeting when six of you voted to rebuild the Deep Creek Pier, only Mayor Frank dissented. He is the only one with a distant relative who would be affected by rebuilding the pier and rebuilding the boat ramp and returning the rightful parking property to the citizens of Newport News.

I suggest you fund the rebuilding of the pier with the two hundred thousand plus designated for performing arts, the Ferguson Center and the Yoder Barn.

I urge you to consider the future of your own children and grandchildren and the legacy you are leaving – will it be one of supporting integrity?

Too many crabs, not enough workers

Source: dailypress.com
By Scott Harper/ Virginia-Pilot
July 25, 2008

Lacking foreign help, processing plants have to limit intake, hurting the rest of the industry.

HAMPTON – John Graham has been buying crabs and selling their sweet white meat from a plant on the Hampton waterfront for decades. He officially is retired but on Monday was working and steaming crabs — for free — worried that the family business might not survive.

“I keep running the numbers, and I just don’t see how they can keep it going,” Graham said during a break, his T-shirt soaked with sweat.

He described a three-headed threat to his company, Graham & Rollins Seafood Inc., and to the Virginia crab industry as a whole. The threats, like a perfect storm, struck at the same time this summer:

• A shortage of foreign workers, brought on by national concerns about illegal immigration

• Market pressures from cheap and imported crabs, which increasingly are replacing locally caught crabs at restaurants, grocery stores and packing houses

• Strict new rules designed to protect dwindling crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay.

For the first time in years, the company has declared a “No Market” status. “I honestly can’t remember the last we did this,” Graham said.

The declaration, announced to a stable of local watermen who catch crabs for Graham & Rollins, “basically means we can’t buy any more crabs, so the guys might as well stay home,” said his son, Johnny Graham, a company vice president.

At this time last year, more than 100 laborers, mostly from Mexico on temporary work visas called H2-Bs, picked through piles of crabs at the Hampton plant. This summer, without the visas, the company has mustered just 18 workers.

“We’ve got plenty of crabs — I’m getting calls all day asking if we want to buy more,” the senior Graham said. “We just don’t have anyone to pick them.”

The same labor shortage is hampering operations at the few remaining crab-processing plants in the state, according to Graham and other merchants. There used to be dozens of plants around the Chesapeake Bay, but today only a handful remain.

The labor shortage has become so acute that Graham is weighing an option of shipping Virginia crabs to Mexico for picking, then flying them back to Hampton for sale.

Without enough products to sell, the crab industry is being undercut by cheap imports, mostly from Indonesia, China, Malaysia and Mexico.

Crab meat produced in these countries is comparable in quality to bay crabs, is more abundant and sells far below domestic prices, according to merchants.

David Bell buys Chesapeake Bay crabs directly from watermen, mostly on the Eastern Shore, and sells them to seafood markets and processing plants throughout the state.

Bell said fewer and fewer watermen are catching crabs these days, given the high costs of fuel and increasing frustration with state regulations. The result, he said, has been a “huge run of crabs the last few weeks, more than we can even sell.”

“The funny thing is — if any of this can be considered funny — is that the governor keeps saying the bay’s empty of crabs,” Bell said. “Well, I got news: It’s not.”

Greg Finney, an Eastern Shore waterman, said there are so many crabs to be had in the lower bay, and so few packing houses ready to accept them, that he has been working under “basket limits” for more than a month now.

In short, he explained, merchants are imposing daily quotas on watermen because of a glutted marketplace.

Back in Hampton, Graham hopes Congress again will allow seafood processors to hire foreign workers in picking houses. They had been coming to Hampton for 11 years, staying May to December — until last year.

An exemption granted to local processors did not survive in Washington, where lawmakers wanted to tackle immigration reform as a whole. But no reform package emerged, and Graham was left to hire local workers.

“Before, our pickers would bring their kids in, and they would learn how to crack claws, how to pick crabs,” Graham said. “Now, they’re learning how to do computers. They’re just not interested in this job anymore.”

He then chuckled wryly to himself.

“And that’s why I’m in here today, working for free,” Graham said.

Putting Watermen Out Of Business

Source: dailypress.com

August 1, 2008

I’m captain of the fishing vessel Sea Rambler, treasurer of the Coastal Virginia Watermen’s Association and a Merchant Marine officer. Currently I am flat broke! This year alone I have seen the end of the Chesapeake Bay watermen.

There are no jobs to be found other than part-time or minimum-wage. To keep fishing, I have to pay $4.50 to $5 a gallon for fuel. That adds up to $700 a week in the boat, $150 in my truck and $30 for oil. I cannot afford to leave the dock!

Year after year, month after month, I and others like me come to the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to defend our livelihoods, only to be pushed around and slowly by law put out of business.

With no outside help, we’ve endured. Now I just don’t see that happening anymore. It used to be one or two watermen here and there, but now there are 10- to 20-some watermen leaving the bay.

Loss of the crab-dredge fishery was a hard blow, with five months of no work; also with rumors of the VMRC taking away my crab pot and peeler licenses, and now restricting charter boat licenses, this is adding more insult to injury. Our careers are facing annihilation.

So I beg the VMRC to stop this madness. The condition of the bay is not our fault. Start looking elsewhere before pointing the finger at us.

Lee R. Smith
Hampton

A struggle to stay afloat

The following article, published in today’s Daily Press, is the first in a series that will seek to examine the degraded condition of the Chesapeake Bay, and how that change is affecting the traditions and lifestyles that have depended on it for generations. Patrick Lynch is the writer of this insightful day-in-the-life look at the struggles involved in being a waterman in today’s world. You’ll find that photographer, Adrin Snider, does a singular job of capturing the natural beauty of one of the oldest professions known to man – waterman.
…Site Administrator
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James Riggins plies the waters of the York River aboard the Linda J. Watermen rise early to run their traps in quest of the blue crab. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)
The deteriorating state of the bay pushes watermen like Jimmy Riggins to the edge of economic ruin.

Story by Patrick Lynch
Photos by Adrin Snider July 13, 2008
Source: dailypress.com

Jimmy Riggins walks from home to work by the light of a silver moon. It’s not so much early in the morning as it is the middle of the night.

It’s about 50 paces from the back door of his house till his rubber boots hit his pier, pieces of plywood nailed over a narrow set of pilings. The first boat that he walks past was built by his grandfather, who lives just down the lane. His father’s is tied up nearby.

Riggins steps on his boat just after 4 a.m. He immediately gets to the work of the day: shoveling out dead menhaden from a well to rebait his crab pots.

“This is always a wonderful way to start the morning,” he says with a slow, easy laugh. He shrugs off the 3 a.m. wake-up call soon followed by a stiff shot of dead-fish aroma. “A man can get used to just about anything, I suspect,” he says.

But “I woke up every morning with a knot in my stomach,” he says. After a year, he decided to go back to crabbing and clamming.

“Basically, I wasn’t on my boat. I like being around home. This is what I do. It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at in my life. It’s all I ever wanted to do. All I’m doing is something my family’s been doing for 100 years.”

The bright lights of Western Refining‘s oil refinery sparkle in the morning darkness. Riggins nods toward it. He has a friend who left the water to work on the pier there. “He loves it,” he says.

“For now, I’m here. I don’t know how much longer, but I’m here.”

Once the morning finally arrives, the orange globe of the sun peeks over the edge of the Chesapeake. A hundred yards ahead, Riggins spots his father’s boat.

“Some of my best memories are on that boat,” he says

. “Me and my sister, culling crabs when we could barely see over the sides.”

Income down 30 percent

It’s different on the water now. The crabs aren’t nearly as plentiful, nor is the income. Even in 10 years — since Riggins has been on his own — his income from crabbing has dropped 30 percent, he says. That’s before factoring in diesel prices that have nearly quadrupled. The cost of zinc, used to keep crab pots from rusting, has more than doubled in a year.

And this year, to protect the ever-more-fragile crab population in the Chesapeake, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission is closing the season a month early and taking other measures to reduce the female crab catch 34 percent.

“Now they’re taking another 30 percent,” he says of the cut. “I ain’t no math scholar, but pretty soon, you’re going to run out of 30 percents.”

Riggins is complying with one of those measures today, though he doesn’t like it and doesn’t think that it’ll do any good: He’s cutting o pen the wires on his pots and twisting in two additional “cull rings” — escape hatches for smaller crabs.

“It hurts so bad,” he says of cutting the pots up. “There’s something about destroying a crab pot.”

On his way to his last row of pots for the day, Riggins sees a boat tearing across the York toward him. He slows, and the boat pulls aside. At the wheel is Bubba Hogg, a Guinea waterman who stopped crabbing two years ago to take a job captaining boats at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He and Riggins exchange hello s, and Hogg talks about why he left the waterman’s life behind.

“Too much trouble. No future,” Hogg says. “There’s plenty of crabs, but everything’s more expensive. Ain’t that right, Jimmy?”

“That’s right.”

Riggins asks, “How’s your job?”

“I love it.”

Riggins nods. “Let me know when you’re hiring.”

They laugh, say goodbye and wave, an d get back to work.

‘No market tomorrow!’

With the day’s catch at his feet, Riggins steers toward York River Seafood in Guinea to sell his crabs. He comes in with 121/2 bushels, at about $20 a bushel. As he’s untying to head home, the dockworker who unloaded his crabs returns.

“There’s no market tomorrow!” he yells.

“What?” Riggins asks, either not hearing him or not believing what he heard.

“No market tomorrow!” the worker yells. He explains that there’s been a surplus of crabs on the market and that a day off is needed . Rig gins leaves discouraged. He’s missed one day this week due to boat trouble. His income potential for the week now has been shot down by a third before he’s pulled another crab from the water.

A man can get used to just about anything.

On the way home, Riggins sees his father tending to his last pots of the day.

“There’s a part of me that’s never going to be happy unless I’m standing behind him on that boat,” Riggins says as he motors by.

Riggins ties up and is walking down the pier toward his house when his dad pulls up to unload some peeler crabs in a float at the end of the dock.

“Whoa! Look at all them peelers!” he says, impressed by the size of the catch.

Then he yells to his dad: “There’s no market tomorrow!”

His dad cups a hand to his ear, and Riggins repeats himself.

“There’s no market tomorrow!”

The end of a way of life?

Right now, Riggins is trying to get used to the new world of crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay.

His great-grandfather, who built the house that Riggins lives in on Dandy Point at the mouth of the York River, never wanted for crabs. Neither did his grandfather, who built several of the deadrises still plying the shallows around Dandy.

His father taught him the trade and, at 65, is still on the water every day, facing the same problems of rising costs, stricter regulations — and fewer crabs.

But Riggins, at 36 one of the younger watermen still working the water full time, has a decision to make: Can this traditional lifestyle keep him afloat in this day and age? Or have we let the Chesapeake get so unhealthy, leaving so few crabs in the bay — and have costs and regulations become such obstacles — that he simply can’t afford to be a waterman anymore?

‘This is what I do’

The blue crabs in the Chesapeake have dropped 70 percent in numbers since 1990. The number of licensed Virginia watermen hasn’t declined by exactly that much since then, but it’s close. Many of them were men older than Riggins, who either passed on or decided that they’d outgrown the work. But Riggins saw many of his peers quit, too.

Riggins fires up the diesel on the Diana D, his 56-year-old 42-foot-long wooden deadrise, and slips away from the pier toward his first line of pots for the day. The crabs have been catching OK, Riggins says while guiding the boat by searchlight across the black water. But they haven’t been selling that well the pas t few w eeks.

The seafood buyers aren’t finding many customers, probably because the customers’ extra money is going to gas and milk and produce prices, instead of fresh crabs. Without customers, but with a decent number of crabs being caught, the buyers aren’t paying the crabbers much. And imported crab meat has been competing with the local catch for years now.

Riggins shakes his head and paraphrases the law of supply and demand. “If I got a boatload, it’s worthless,” he says. “If I need something, it’s priceless.”

The Diana D skims down Riggins’ first row of pots in a shallow area called the “bay shore.” It’s at the fringe of the Poquoson Flats, once ho m e to huge underwater grass beds that sheltered baby crabs. The grasses are gone today, victim to polluted Chesapeake waters.

Riggins has a mechanical device that could pull the wire traps up through the water, but he prefers to haul them by hand. He w or ks by himself. He reaches for each pot line with a shepherd’s crook, hauls up the pot, dumps the old bait, shakes out the crabs, rebaits the pot and sets it on the ledge of the boat. He steers to the next buoy, tosses the pot in next to it and reaches for the crook to start again.

A single small light bulb holds back the darkness and throws a dim light on the back of the boat. Riggins’ feet shuffle over a pat ch of t h e floorboards where the marine paint has been worn down to the wood. A steady rhythm emerges.

“This is what I do,” he says after a few pots, “every day.” Two hundred pots a day. Six days a week. Eight months of the year.

After filling up three large plastic tubs, he switches his attention to culling the crabs by gender and size. Occasionally, the crabs sti ll bite. Even through thick rubber gloves. Riggins hardly pauses.

“Like I said,” Riggins says, smiling, “a m an can get used to just about anything.”

Back in the cabin, he guides the b oat past the Goodwin Islands. One hand is on the wheel, one on the searchlight. The sun has yet to hint a t its impending arrival.

‘For now, I’m here’

Riggins left the water about five y ears a go, when he was too frustrated with the industry’s declining fortune. He fixed outboard motors for seven or eight months, but that wasn’t enough money, either. So he got a job on a line, making kitchen cabinets. It paid pretty well.

Photos

Jimmy Riggins has been working the water with his father since the age of 9. The 36 year old fourth generation waterman faces an uncertain future with crabbing restrictions, operating costs and smaller crab population. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)
Jimmy Riggins rises early to check 2 00 crab traps he runs in and around the York River. The 36-year-old is a fourth-generation waterman and faces an uncertain future with crabbing restrictions and operating costs. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)
The sun breaks the horizon as Jimmy Riggins runs another one of the 200 crab traps he baits to catch blue crab adjacent to the York River. Watermen begin their day an hour before sunrise. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press/ June 26, 2008)

A trap with four cull rings is tossed back into the York River after its catch of blue crabs was unloaded and rebaited by Jimmy Riggins. Crabbers had to add two additional cull rings by July 1st to meet new state regulations. ( Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26 , 2008)
Moving to his next string of traps, Jimmy Riggins loves his job working alone for hours in a series of repetitive chores running crab traps. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 200 8) Culling crabs, sorting them by sex, size and egg bearing females, Jimmy Riggins takes the ups and downs of crabbing in stride hoping to survive the recent downturn in the industry he has been involved with since a child. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)

A blue crab rests in a bushel basket yet to be filled by Jimmy Riggins. The much sought after blue crab is in a state of decline according to researchers. More regulation has attempted to limit the catch of watermen by shorter seasons and additional cull rings in traps. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)

Jimmy Riggins installs an additional set of two cull rings in his traps, escape routes for crabs to small for harvest. The rings however can let small adult crabs escape to propogate which Riggins contends leads to smaller adult crabs. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)
A set of four cull rings are installed in traps run by Jimmy Riggins giving escape routes for crabs too small for harvest. In addition to juvenile crabs, the rings can let small adult crabs escape to propogate which Riggins contends leads to smaller adult crabs in the species. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008) A blue crab claw hangs out a of a full bushel basket after being harvested by Jimmy Riggins. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)
Jimmy Riggins offloads his take of crab for the day at York River Seafood with the help of Nathaniel Berry. Twelve and a half bushels of crabs were harvested by Riggins on what he described as a slower day of crabbing. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 26, 2008)

Jimmy Riggins holds a small. adult crab which will never get any bigger than it is now, a problem Riggins contends in the result of cull rings which let smaller crabs, juvenile and adult escape traps. (Adrin Snider, Daily Press / June 2 6, 2008) Nathaniel Berry (left writes Jimmy Riggins the pay ticket for his catch of crab after off-loading his take at York River Seafood. N athaniel Berry later told Riggins that the market was closed the next day due to a lack of buyers for blue crabs leaving him out of wo rk for the next day.(Adrin Snider, Dayly Press/ June 26, 2008)

NN doesn’t need to rebuild pier

Source: dailypress.com

June 16, 2008

Why would the city of Newport News even be looking at putting the Deep Creek pier in again after months of previous debate that concluded it doesn’t have the money, land or support to do the project? (“Deep Creek pier decision delayed,” June 11) The pier was great when it was new and in good shape. Then, the watermen abused it to ruins.

Who paid for the removal of the sunken boat or the engine that was pulled out? Who paid for the damage when the watermen’s uninsured boats broke away in a storm and smashed into the private boats next door? Who’s paying for the new bulkhead across the creek? Who pays for the recovery of the sunken fishing boat that now sits right in the middle of the channel? Did it sink on its own or did it get help? If you let the watermen back in, does this mean the foul language, fighting and intimidation will return?

The James River Marina owners have greatly improved the area from what it once was. This means more tax revenue to the city. Now the city is once again trying to take personal property through eminent domain “for the good of the citizens.” Well, all the waterman who were there before will be more than happy to have a place to leave their dilapidated boats for free once again.

A walking pier? Come on. For the price, the public road goes down to the river, walk through the parking lot another 200 feet, and it will be the same thing.

Jeff Caplan
Newport News

Beautiful Swimmers

The following was excerpted form the obituary of a man who honored the profession of waterman.
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William W. Warner, whose first book, “Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay,” was a national bestseller and winner of the 1977 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, died April 18 of complications of Alzheimer’s disease at his home in Washington, D.C. He was 88.

“I just had this vague feeling that I’d like to do a little writing,” he told the New York Times in 1983. He soon realized, as he told the Times, that the “benign and beautiful waters” of the Chesapeake were his natural setting and the watermen were his natural heroes.

Praise for Warner and his work came from Morris Marsh, a Smith Island waterman profiled in “Beautiful Swimmers.” “I enjoyed him, really, and he mostly asked sensible questions,” Marsh told Tom Horton, who wrote an article for Washingtonian magazine in June 2007. “A lot says they want to go with you, but come 4 a.m., they’re not there. But he was always there, waiting to go.

Read his obituary in it’s entirety HERE.

Shirley Jones Speaks At City Council Meeting

Shirley Jones was an informed and eloquent speaker at the City Council meeting on June 10, 2008. After cordially greeting council members, she spoke the following words.
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I wish to encourage you to rebuild the Deep Creek pier as it was originally, along with the public access boat ramp. I understand that you are saying that there is no parking, but we had parking access there for years and years. What happened to it? What happened to the boat ramp that used to be there for all of us to use.

Council members, I understand that you are leasing nearly four acres of prime waterfront property, with three buildings on it, to Christopher Newport University – with piers for their eighteen sailboats. I think they have more than that but… I understand you’re leasing this property for a dollar a year. That doesn’t seem even reasonable to me. I can’t imagine it.

I also understand from the man who removed the pier at Deep Creek that only a small part of the pier was in poor condition. It could have been repaired very economically from what he said.

I think you’re putting an unnecessary burden on our watermen, and I don’t understand why. Our watermen are as much a part of our history, our Warwick history, as the Shipyard is of the Newport News history. And I think we have an obligation as citizens to respect that, and the gift from the Melzer family. I really would like to see you do something to support our history.

Thank you.

Deep Creek pier decision delayed

The city was leaning toward a mooring plan, but Mayor Joe Frank asked for more information.

By Sabine Hirschauer
June 11, 2008
Source: dailypress.com

NEWPORT NEWS – — So close. But not close enough.

Four Newport News City Council members said Tuesday they would support another mooring pier at the end of Deep Creek Road. Two council members, Vice Mayor Charles Allen and Councilman Joe Whitaker, backed a pedestrian pier with benches and rails.

But it was Mayor Joe S. Frank who sent city staff back to the drawing board on the pier issue.

“I don’t think I have enough information to decide one way or the other,” Frank said.

Since the city demolished the aging Deep Creek pier last year, a firestorm has ignited over whether or not to rebuild the 1940s-era local landmark.

A full-fledged, new 400-foot mooring pier including a costly parking lot, lights, water, restrooms and security cameras could cost between $600,000 to $900,000. By comparison, a 300-foot pedestrian pier with some amenities, where only children could fish, could cost around $300,000. But it was unclear if a parking lot with a price tag between $146,000 to $185,000 was needed for the shorter pedestrian dock. Restrooms would cost between $190,000 to $250,000.

The city attorney will research if by state law, Newport News can use eminent domain to acquire land for parking, something which might not be legal if the pier was used commercially by the watermen. The city will also check into whether or not the pedestrian pier would require parking at all.

Council members also discussed charging pier users for parking and mooring, and requiring watermen to insure their boats once the city rebuilds the pier.

Good news and bad news and a whole lot in between, C.W. Powell, a local waterman, said describing Tuesday’s work session debate about the pier.

And Carol Hogge, the wife of a Deep Creek waterman, said for the city requiring insurance and possibly charging for mooring wasn’t fair.

“They are running the watermen out,” she said.

How much will rebuilding Deep Creek pier cost?

City officials will hear various options today for replacing the iconic pier.

By Sabine Hirschauer
June 10, 2008
source: dailypress.com

NEWPORT NEWS – The Deep Creek pier might be gone, but the controversy surrounding its demolition last fall and the debate about rebuilding it is alive and well.

City officials will brief Newport News City Council members during a work session this afternoon on the different options for rebuilding the iconic pier, which sat at the end of Deep Creek Road for more than six decades.

Newport News began dismantling the pier in September because of safety and liability concerns. But the demolition, which cost $30,000, soon caused a rift between many Deep Creek residents and local watermen who wanted to keep the pier and City Council members, who said it was too costly to maintain.

“They need to replace it,” said 65-year-old waterman Jimmy Crewe, who’s been harvesting oysters at Deep Creek for nearly the last five decades. Crewe moors his commercial fishing boat at the Menchville Marina across from where the Deep Creek pier once stood.

During today’s work session, city officials are expected to present new estimates on how much it would cost to replace the pier.

One option includes replacing it with a similar 400-feet-long and 8-feet-wide full service mooring structure.

To build the new pier — pilings and wooden decking — would cost an estimated $146,000. But there would still be a parking problem because Newport News doesn’t own land for a parking lot at the Deep Creek pier.

“That’s just putting the mooring pier back on the end of Deep Creek Road,” said Michael Poplawski, director of the city’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. “It’s the same if we would build the north Newport News recreation center without a parking lot. People would say ‘Wait a minute, how should I get there?’ It should be done right.”

According to city estimates, the cost of buying land for parking, restrooms, lights and other amenities could drive the price up to nearly $750,000.

“Given that such property is on the waterfront, it will be very expensive,” City Manager Randy Hildebrand wrote to the council last week.

Another option would be to build a 300-feet-long, 8-feet-wide pedestrian pier with handrails and benches, for about $133,000, but that would not include the cost of a parking lot and other amenities.

When the city began to raze the Deep Creek pier last year, most watermen moved across the water to the Menchville side of Deep Creek. On Friday, the city started to replace 735 feet of wooden bulkhead at the Menchville Marina. Additional work at the marina includes regrading the low area along the parking lot next to the bulkhead, which often floods.

Repair work at the marina is expected to be finished by Sept. 18 and will not include additional mooring piers or pilings — or repairing the piers and pilings currently in place between the docks used by Christopher Newport College and the existing boat ramp.

“There was no reason to tear down Deep Creek pier in the first place,” said Crewe, tying up his Bay Queen next to another commercial fishing boat. “We need all the space we can get.”

December 11, 2007 Regular City Council Meeting Minutes

MINUTES OF REGULAR MEETING

OF THE NEWPORT NEWS CITY COUNCIL

HELD IN THE CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS

2400 WASHINGTON AVENUE

December 11, 2007

7:30 P.M.

Mayor Frank advised that the City Manager was asked to bring forward the plans, with a cost estimate regarding the Deep Creek Pier, as well as scheduling public meetings in the neighborhood to view the recommended plans and to receive comment and feedback. City Manager Hildebrandt responded that his direction was to proceed with plans for a pedestrian pier, not a wharf pier for use by watermen. City Manager Hildebrandt further stated it was the intent to develop and improve the facilities on the Menchville side of the harbor. Input would be welcomed from the watermen as there would be meetings as to how the City could better make the Menchville area usable by the industry.

Councilwoman McMillan expressed concern about fishing not being allowed. It was her hope that this be reconsidered. She stated a pedestrian pier was a pedestrian pier and she did not see why children could not fish off of that pier.

Source: Official site of Newport News, Virginia