Dear Shore Drive Residents,

Your help is desperately needed to stop the largest development to ever be built in the Shore Drive corridor.  The regional DEQ has issued a preliminary permit in favor of the Indigo Dunes project that will destroy over 1.5 acres of wetlands and allow 1069 new residents in the most densely populated area of Virginia Beach.

What can you do?  A simple email in opposition to the project would help tremendously.  The deadline to send emails is Tuesday June 24th.  The email can be in your own words or a simple forward of the following draft.

As of the writing of this post, DEQ’s email is “down” and they do not have any idea when it might be back up. Currently – the drop dead date on comments is still close of business Tuesday, June 24th.

As many of you know, their email has been down since at least Saturday.

Regulator at DEQ suggested writing a letter or faxing instead of email as “email goes down all the time here”.
Address & fax information for DEQ’s local office.

Dear Ms. Kattan,

I am adamantly opposed to the proposed Indigo Dunes project and request that it be denied based on the following reasons:

1.    Based on previous evaluation, VADEQ should not consider issuing a provisional permit for these same wetland fills. 

2.    The proposal has no justifiable hardship and by law should be denied. 

3.    VA DEQ should not even consider issuing a provisional permit for this project based on similar violations identified by DEQ sister agency CBLAD. 

4.    We strongly believe an independent 3rd party Functional Assessment should be completed as several agencies do in fact find value in the wetlands slated for destruction with this draft permit.

5.  Zero wetland and riparian buffer impact must be a non-negotiable requirement.  As the law states, avoidance of wetland destruction must come before mitigation.  100% avoidance is possible.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

(Place your name here)

The email should be addressed to Ms. Sheri Kattan of the local DEQ.  Her email address is sakattan@deq.virginia.gov  Also include Tim Solanic on your email so the SDCC can maintain a copy in case DEQ loses theirs.  Tim’s email is tim@sdcc.info.
Address & fax information for DEQ’s local office.

Thank you for your help in saving the wetlands and the quality of life in our community.

Todd Solomon
Shore Drive Community Coalition – President

Visit http://www.sdcc.info for additional information regarding the Bayfront area.