Editorial: Pentagon right to choose Hampton Roads for pilot climate program

The Defense Department’s choice of Hampton Roads as the pilot site for a program to increase climate resilience in communities with military bases is great news in itself and for what it says about things that are already happening here to prepare for the future. The new Interagency Regional Coordinator for Resilience program aims to make it easier for the military to work with federal, state and local governments and to take advantage of existing efforts to prepare for climate change. The program should benefit both the military bases and the civilian community by making it easier for them to work together for the good of everyone.

The law creating the new program says that the Pentagon should choose areas with significant sea level rise that threatens military readiness or makes it difficult for service members to get to their posts. There’s no doubt that Hampton Roads meets those criteria. Hampton Roads is home to 15 military installations, including Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval base in the world.

Bases are scattered around the region, nestled among civilian areas. Many of those who serve at those installations live off base. They drive to work, on roads that are increasingly vulnerable to flooding, and they shop and play and send children to school in the greater community.

What affects neighborhoods affects military bases, and vice versa. Water —the Chesapeake Bay, the Atlantic Ocean and the many waterways that make the region a natural for ports and military bases —is at the heart of Hampton Roads. That water is rising, even as some of the land is sinking.

The DOD’s choice of Hampton Roads as the first pilot site reflects more than the vulnerability of the area and its many bases. It is a salute to efforts already under way here, both military and civilian. Our congressional representatives have been advocating such a program.

Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine and Reps. Bobby Scott and Rob Wittman have led the way, asking President Joe Biden more than a year ago to create a new DOD position that would coordinate resilience efforts in Hampton Roads.

Their innovative approach and persistence have paid off. To their credit, military leaders understand the reality of climate change and are working to reduce the dangers. The Navy is transitioning away from the carbon fuels that feed global warming.

It is making plans to be ready as melting Arctic ice creates new channels and as sea-level rise and flooding around the world could lead to conflicts. Here in Hampton Roads, the Navy is using both natural solutions —such as rebuilding dunes and protecting marshes —and manmade tactics —floodwalls and berms and the like —as it monitors and prepares for climate-related problems. Fortunately, the Pentagon also found Hampton Roads a good place for the pilot program because local governments here and the military have already shown that they can collaborate across jurisdictional lines.

Four years ago, Naval Station Norfolk and several other Navy installations in South Hampton Roads joined an effort coordinated by the Hampton Roads Planning District in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach Joint Land Use Study. The study identified areas outside military bases in those cities where flooding, storms and erosion could cause problems for military operations and access to the bases. That information is useful in planning projects to increase climate resilience.

Last summer, Norfolk Naval Station and six other Navy installations in the region joined the new Virginia Security Corridor, a conservation partnership working to increase military preparedness, strengthen climate resilience and conserve natural resources such as marshes and forested areas that absorb water and reduce flooding. If we don’t do all we can to slow climate change, mitigate the damage it causes and make the region more resilient, flooding and related problems could threaten our local way of life and the national security of all Americans. As the pilot site for the DOD’s new Interagency Regional Coordinator for Resilience program, Hampton Roads is a leader in that campaign.

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