At the new Ryan Resilience Lab, the
Norfolk non-profit is helping the
world's urban coastal residents protect themselves – and nature –
as sea levels rise.
NORFOLK,
Va., May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The
non-profit Elizabeth River Project, which has worked for 30 years
to clean up one of the nation's most contaminated urban waterways,
is set to officially open a global model for urban coastal
resilience on June 1, 2024.
The Ryan Resilience Lab, funded almost entirely through local
donations, will demonstrate practical ways the world's coastal
residents and businesses can learn how to protect themselves – and
the environment – as sea levels rise. The building is located along
Knitting Mill Creek in Norfolk, a
city where the tides are rising faster than anywhere on the East
Coast.
"Everyone seemed to be talking about sea level rise, but no one
was providing practical examples for how urban coastal cities like
ours should prepare for it," said the Elizabeth River Project's
Executive Director Marjorie Mayfield
Jackson. "The Ryan Resilience Lab shows us how we can work
with the challenges of nature and still protect it."
Designed by Norfolk
architectural firm Work Program Architects, the innovative,
6,500-square-foot Ryan Resilience Lab has been built to adapt to
tidal flooding, which experts estimate will become at least seven
times more frequent in Norfolk by
2050.
"The lab is designed to withstand elements that will destroy
many other structures around it," said the project's architect
Sam Bowling. "But the materials and
solutions we used aren't out of reach for other builders,
homeowners and cities. Rain-absorbing landscaping, pervious paving,
adaptable floodproofing, floating storage buildings — these are
affordable solutions for structures that are built to last."
For Mayfield-Jackson, pioneering solutions to big environmental
problems is what continues to motivate the Elizabeth River
Project.
"Our success in cleaning up the Elizabeth River shows the
positive impact that regular people can have on the environment if
they make real efforts to come together and work toward a
solution," Mayfield Jackson said.
"Sea level rise is our next challenge, and we're rising to it."
When the group got its start in 1993, the Elizabeth River was
considered biologically dead for miles at a stretch, suffering from
decades of industrial and urban pollution as it wound its way
through the coastal cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. Today, after spearheading the
clean-up of half the river's toxic hotspots and reconstructing
hundreds of acres of pollution-filtering tidal wetlands, the group
is seeing the return of otters, dolphins, eagles, pelicans and
other wildlife species to the river's shorelines.
Now, sea level rise threatens it all.
"Nearly 90% of the wetlands that are so crucial to the river's
health are expected to drown," Mayfield
Jackson said, "and as the water rises, it washes unfiltered
pollutants back into the river."
That concern – along with the threats sea level rise poses to
life and property – is what drove the Resilience Lab project.
"Rather than doom and gloom, we're taking on sea level rise with
hope and inspiration," Mayfield
Jackson said. "That's what the Elizabeth River Project has
always been about."
A special Ryan Resilience Lab pre-opening dedication for invited
media and guests is set for 10 a.m.
May 30, with a public grand opening
celebration scheduled for June 1,
from 11 a.m.- 4 p.m., at 4610 Colley
Avenue, Norfolk. RSVP:
Casey Shaw,
CShaw@elizabethriver.org, 757-613-0411.
In conjunction with the grand opening, shops up and down Colley
Avenue will join forces with the Elizabeth River Project to launch
an "EcoDistrict," encouraging businesses and residents to adopt
eco-friendly practices in solidarity with the new Ryan Resilience
Lab in their midst. Demonstrating such practices is becoming the
norm along the street with businesses such as Norfolk's first store selling all native
plants; another selling recycled bikes and a third offering
electric boats for rent.
About the Elizabeth River Project
The non-profit
Elizabeth River Project has worked since 1993 to restore the
environmental health of the urban Elizabeth River, once presumed
dead. Along with the new Ryan Resilience Lab, signature programs of
the Elizabeth River Project include the Dominion Energy Learning
Barge, "America's Greenest Vessel;" Paradise Creek Nature Park, 40
acres of revitalized wetlands and forest; River Star Homes, River Star Businesses and the
Youth Resilience Expo. elizabethriver.org
Contact:
Casey Shaw
378178@email4pr.com
757-613-0411
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SOURCE Elizabeth River Project