farming has always been a major
part of the economy along
Virginia's coastline.
But now the region is
experiencing the fastest average
rate of sea level rise on the
atlantic coast.
Sam turken of local station WHRO
reports on how this shift is
creating significant problems
for the area's farmers.
Sam: Water levels around
southeast Virginia have risen
nearly 20 inches over the past
century, and it's estimated they
could go up about seven feet by
2100.
So what does all this mean for
coastal farmers around here?
Lynn Gayle is still figuring
that out.
Lynn: This is a Seaside farm in
an area called fox grove, and
the barrier islands are about a
mile to the east of us.
My son farms with me and we tend
about 2,500 acres.
Farming is a lifestyle.
Sam: Gayle has farmed out here
for more than three decades.
He grows commodities -- corn,
soybean and something called
rapeseed, which produces an oil
used for engines and plastics.
Gayle shows me around a 75 acre
field bordering the ocean.
Lush soybean crops are
everywhere except for one small
patch close to the water.
Lynn: They were planted here,
and you can actually see the
salt residue on the soil.
Most of those that came up died.
Occasional high tides or flood
tides or if there's a nor'easter
this would be underwater right
here.
Sam: Gayle says he's watched the
seawater encroach farther and
farther up this field over the
past decade.
About an acre is no longer
farmable.
It's even worse at another field
he used to plant.
20 acres completely failed.
This is all worrying Gayle's
32-year-old son, sands.
He grew up playing with tractor
toys.
Now he's taking over the
business and says hundreds of
thousands of future dollars are
at stake.
Sands: A third of the acreage
that I farm could be right on
the water and directly affected
by sea level rise.
And as it takes more area, then,
of course, I'm going to have to
figure something out.
Sam: Nationwide, only the gulf
coast around Texas and Louisiana
is experiencing a faster rate of
rising seas.
As oceans heat up from climate
change, water molecules expand,
contributing to sea level rise.
Another part of the problem,
scientists say the land around
Virginia is sinking.
Cora Baird studies sea level
rise for the university of
Virginia's coastal research
center.
She says during the last ice age
thousand of years ago, a glacier
covered the northeast, pushing
down on the Earth's crust.
Virginia was at the edge of the
glacier and actually lifted,
kind of like when you sit on a
mattress, the part beneath you
sinks but the area around you
bulges up.
Baird says those glaciers melted
away long ago but the Earth's
crust in this part of Virginia
is still reacting.
Cora: Now we are still doing the
process of settling down as if
whoever was sitting on the
mattress just stood up.
Sam: On top of this, as glaciers
continue to melt all over the
world, they're sending more
water into the oceans.
Add all of it up and it's not a
question of if some areas will
go under water, but when.
Baird says the water isn't just
coming in from the ocean,
rivers, and creeks.
It's rising from beneath the
land, mixing with groundwater
and making the soil wetter and
saltier.
An invisible killer.
It's a threat all the way down
the atlantic coast to Florida.
Cora: If you feel like it's
important to continue farming,
and it's important to keep
agriculture a part of our, our
sort of landscape and identity
where we're in such a confined
geographical area, if it keeps
pushing in from the edges,
there's only so many places we
can shift to.
Sam: Now, there are ways that
farmers could hold on for some
time.
Salt can dehydrate plants to
death or even poison them.
So researchers are testing
salt-tolerant crops like barley
and quinoa.
Farmers also can dig ditches and
build berms to keep water away
or accept the inevitable.
Thelonius: They love wet soils.
And they can actually help to
soak up some of that water.
Sam: Thelonius cook runs a
sustainable produce farm.
No fertilizer or pesticides.
Problem is, the farmland is
increasingly soggy as
groundwater seeps up from below.
So when it rains, water flows
off the road onto cook's fields
and has nowhere to go.
This has killed enough crops the
past few years to translate into
a $30,000 loss.
Cook, who's 42, hopes to adapt
to the rising water, but he says
there's a good chance farming
here could become impossible.
Thelonius: It makes you feel
deflated because, you know,
you're building something, you
know, for the next generation,
and you want to make sure that
this is here for the next
generation.
Sam: For "Pbs news weekend," I'm
Sam turken on Virginia's eastern
shore.