Chesapeake Sustainability Network Legislative Priorities for 2027 General Assembly
1. Support legislation to give localities the option to set stronger standards to preserve and expand tree canopy.
Rationale: In its planning documents, the City acknowledges the many benefits of trees and is taking steps to preserve mature trees and encourage the planting of new trees. The City is about to start work on an Urban Forestry Plan. However, current state law limits the City's ability to set strong standards for tree preservation and planting in new developments.
2. Support staffing and funding for the Virginia Department of Forestry's Urban and Community Forestry programs. The Urban and Community Forestry program directly supports local efforts to preserve and expand tree canopy through programs such as Virginia Trees for Clean Water, Community Forest Revitalization, Urban and Community Forestry Grant, invasive species management programs, and others.
Rationale: Both the City and local community groups have made use of various grants provided by the Department of Forestry to plant trees around the city. However, the Virginia Department of Forestry's Urban and Community Forestry programs are threatened by federal funding cuts, which would directly impact these local efforts.
3. Support increased funding for the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program (VCAP), Virginia Agricultural Cost-Share (VACS), as well as sufficient staffing in Soil and Water Conservation Districts to implement these programs.
VCAP and VACS are important tools for residents, businesses, churches, institutions, local government, and farmers to get funding for conservation landscaping practices that reduce stormwater runoff, flooding, and improve water quality.
4. Support legislative initiatives that protect non-data center customers from rising electricity costs caused by the need to expand electricity infrastructure to support large data centers.
Supplying enough energy to keep pace with growing data center demand will also likely increase electricity costs for all customers. If utilities are more reliant on importing power, they may not always be able to secure lower-cost power and will be more susceptible to spikes in energy market prices. The 2024 JLARC study highlighted that data centers create additional financial risks to electric utilities and their customers if utilities build more generation and transmission infrastructure, the forecast demand does not materialize, or several large data centers close. This could strand utilities with infrastructure costs that would have to be recouped from their existing customer base. Progress was made in the 2026 General Assembly on making sure data centers cover the infrastructure costs needed to build power plants, transmission lines, and substations to power these facilities, but more work is needed to ensure other customers are not subsidizing these costs.
5. Support funding to have the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) establish regulations on PFAS and PFOA "Forever Chemicals” to protect residents from water and soil pollution.
PFAS are a group of over 15,000 chemicals that are dangerous to human health and the environment. They are commonly known as “forever chemicals” because, unlike most other chemicals, they do not break down but instead build up and persist in our bodies, soil, water, and wildlife. PFAS, even at very low levels, can cause significant human health harm, including cancers, impacts to the heart and the liver, developmental harm to infants and children, and reduced immune function. In 2016, the confirmation of PFAS contamination in the groundwater near the Fentress Airfield resulted in residents having to abandon multiple water wells and the City having to extend municipal water service to the Fentress area.
PFAS is a pervasive problem and has already been detected in 16 drinking water utilities, impacting the drinking water of 2.5 million Virginians, including those in Chesapeake supplied by Norfolk Water. PFAS pollution enters the environment from sources like industrial and residential wastewater and stormwater discharges, landfill leachate, and land-applied biosolids. Residential sources include waterproof and stain-resistant fabrics, food packaging, and non-stick cookware. DEQ should use its existing authority under the Clean Water Act to control PFAS pollution discharges through the Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (VPDES) permit program. DEQ should also require disclosure, monitoring, and control of PFAS in biosolids through the Virginia Pollution Abatement (VPA) permitting program.
6. Support legislation to enable localities to prohibit hunting from state waters adjacent to any subdivisions of a city that, in the opinion of the governing body, are so heavily populated as to make such hunting dangerous to the residents.
While the City prohibits the discharge of any firearm in the northern, urban parts of Chesapeake, there has been a determination that this jurisdiction does not extend to state waters. This has resulted in the construction and hunting from a duck blind in the Indian River just over 150 yards away from homes. This has resulted in shot striking residential property and trespass by hunters on private property to recover shot waterfowl. The situation is unacceptable to the vast majority of residents around the hunting blind. There is also the risk of this situation repeating itself at other locations along the Indian River, Southern Branch, or Western Branch. The City should support legislation to allow localities to regulate such hunting.
7. Support legislation to cap harvest of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.
Menhaden are a small forage fish that are often described as the most important fish in the sea. These small fish are at the base of the aquatic food chain. Striped bass, osprey, red drum, marine mammals, and other wildlife depend on them. The drop in fish populations, including striped bass, is traceable to the decrease in menhaden; this impacts recreational fishing in our area. Ospreys, an iconic bird in our skies, are experiencing severe reproductive failure and starvation rates that drop well below historical lows seen during the 1970s DDT crisis. In waters with a salinity greater than 5 ppt (covering over 80% of the Bay)—ospreys produced an average of only 0.33 young per pair, far below the minimum threshold to sustain the population. Research links this decline directly to severe food stress, specifically a sharp drop in menhaden.
8. Support implementing a Virginia Bottle Bill. This program would place a refundable deposit on beverage containers to reduce litter, increase recycling, improve environmental and human health, and address the growing impacts of plastic and beverage container pollution across the Commonwealth.
A bottle bill would significantly reduce litter. Plastic and glass bottles, cans, and bottle tops are 5 of the 10 most littered items in Virginia. A bottle bill provides a strong incentive not to litter bottles and cans, and even to collect those that are littered. Research by Clean Virginia Waterways finds that bottles and cans were littered more than twice as often in Virginia compared to states with bottle bills. In states that have implemented bottle bills, beverage-container return rates above 80% and, in some cases, exceeding 90%.
A bottle bill improves recycling efficiency, it diverts bottles and cans from private waste collection programs that may not participate in recycling programs, creates recycling-related jobs, strengthens domestic material supply chains, reduces demand for virgin resources, and lowers litter removal and storm-drain maintenance costs. It saves taxpayers money by reducing tipping fees for city trash sent to SPSA.
9. Support legislation that allows individual homeowners that are part of Homeowner Associations (HOAs) to implement conservation landscaping best practices, such as those funded by the Virginia Conservation Assistance Program (VCAP). Also support legislation to allow individual homeowners that are part of HOAs to install renewable energy systems, such as solar, without unreasonable restrictions.
While current law allows HOAs to impose reasonable restrictions, these should not create unnecessary burdens on homeowners trying to adopt environmentally sound best practices and cut energy costs.