Virginia Beach's Waters Are Under Threat - Comment By August 22nd
Hi everyone,
With the comment period deadline approaching, I wanted to share an important opportunity to speak up about a proposal that could have major consequences for Virginia’s coast, Virginia Beach, and the broader Mid-Atlantic.
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is considering more than 2,700 square miles of ocean off Virginia’s coast - starting about 3 miles north of Virginia Beach - for potential commercial mineral leasing and seabed mining. This could involve industrial-scale dredging of the seafloor to extract heavy mineral sands and phosphorites - introducing an entirely new extractive industry into Mid-Atlantic waters.
There are still major unanswered questions about what mining at this scale could mean for our ocean and coastal communities. Among the concerns:
- Seafloor habitat loss: Dredging could remove or bury habitat that supports shellfish, fish, crustaceans, and other organisms at the base of the marine food web.
- Sediment plumes and water quality: Mining could generate large plumes of disturbed sediment that travel beyond the mining footprint and affect nearby habitats, fisheries, and coastal waters.
- Potential contaminants: Disturbing buried sediments raises concerns about heavy metals, radioactive materials, and other contaminants entering the water column and food web.
- Fisheries and aquaculture: Commercial fishermen, recreational anglers, charter captains, seafood businesses, and shellfish growers all depend on healthy water and productive marine habitat.
- Wildlife: These waters support sea turtles, dolphins, whales, Atlantic sturgeon, seabirds, and other migratory species, including the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale.
- Tourism and coastal economies: Clean beaches, fishing, boating, wildlife, and recreation support businesses and communities throughout coastal Virginia and the Delmarva Peninsula.
- Coastal resilience: Important questions remain about how removing large volumes of offshore sediment could affect sediment movement, shoreline stability, erosion, and storm protection.
- Existing ocean uses: The area is already heavily used for fishing, commercial shipping, military operations, recreation, and activities associated with NASA Wallops and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport.
Perhaps most importantly, commercial hard-mineral mining has never occurred in U.S. federal waters. There is too much at stake to rush toward establishing a new offshore mining industry while so many environmental, economic, and operational questions remain unanswered.
Make your voice heard
BOEM is accepting public comments, and personal comments matter. Whether you live near the coast, work on the water, fish, own a coastal business, visit the beach, care about wildlife, or simply value a healthy ocean, BOEM should hear from you.
Submit an official public comment here:
https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/BOEM-2026-0100-0001
You do not need to be an expert. Share your connection to the coast, what places, wildlife, businesses, fisheries, or activities matter to you, and why seabed mining concerns you. Most importantly, clearly ask BOEM not to move forward with commercial mineral leasing and seabed mining off Virginia’s coast.
Please share this information with friends, family, fishermen, business owners, community organizations, and others who care about the Mid-Atlantic coast.
For our coastal communities, the ocean is much more than scenery - it supports livelihoods, traditions, fisheries, tourism, recreation, wildlife, and local economies.
There is too much at stake - and too much we still do not know - to turn the Mid-Atlantic into a testing ground for an unprecedented offshore mining industry.
Thank you for speaking up and helping spread the word.