On Northern Neck, fighting the fade

On a sweltering August afternoon, William Scott Smith, a strapping 14-year-old, worked quickly to ice down the healthy haul of croaker he had helped bring ashore in this rural, water community where the Piankatank River flows into the Chesapeake Bay.

"I want to do this forever," he said with a smile, wiping the sweat from his brow. "My dad, my grandpa, and my grandpa on my mom's side have all worked on the water. It's what we do."

It's an increasingly unrealistic goal, says Lee Smith, co-owner of Gwynn's Island Seafood, the fishing operation he runs here in Mathews County with his three sons.

"It's gotten to be so expensive, and there are so many stupid laws and regulations now that they're putting us watermen out," said Smith, who is unrelated to William Scott Smith. "It's crazy, man, what they're doing to us."

Smaller harvests, rising costs and increasingly stringent commercial fishing rules have convinced him that his own grandsons won't be able to make a living on the water. "I really don't think that's possible," he said. "There are just too many things working against us."

Already, younger generations are moving away from the industries that have for decades supported the economies of the Middle Peninsula and Northern Neck.

Census figures show that from 2000 to 2010, seven counties in the area — including all four from the Northern Neck — have recorded more deaths than births, a phenomenon known as natural decrease.

On the Eastern Shore, off the coast of the Northern Neck, Northampton County also experienced natural decrease. And while its neighbor to the north, Accomack County, did not, that county lost a higher percentage of its population than any other locality in the state.

While retirees and wealthy second-home seekers are drawn to the region's natural beauty, waterfront properties and relaxed lifestyle, its young are fleeing for lack of jobs, many moving to nearby Hampton Roads, central Virginia or the fastest-growing region of the state, Northern Virginia.

"There's just no work," said recently retired Lancaster County Administrator William H. "Bill" Pennell Jr. "This was an agricultural and water-based economy and now, both of those are on the decline for a lot of reasons."

Pennell said that in his 18 years as county administrator, he saw a 25 percent drop in the number of students in the county's school system. Meanwhile, retirees flocked.

The median age in Lancaster is now 54, making it the oldest county in Virginia followed by its neighbor to the north, Northumberland County, which has a median age of 53.6. Across the Rappahannock River, Middlesex County and Mathews, at 51 and 50 respectively, are also among the top five oldest counties in the state. In neighboring King and Queen County, the median age is 45.2. By comparison, the median age statewide is 37.5.

As the age has climbed, largely because of the influx of wealthy retirees snatching up waterfront property, so have home values, particularly in Mathews and Lancaster.

"I think most of the people here make their money mowing lawns for tourists," joked Eldor Oien, a Lancaster resident who retired from the Navy and snatched up a 17-acre farm and waterfront property in 1999 and moved from Minnesota in 2002 as prices climbed.

In the second quarter of this year — in the midst of a down market — the average home sales price in Lancaster was more than $414,000. The median income, on the other hand, is less than $45,000, highlighting the sharp contrast between rich and poor.

It's visible, too. On almost any given road, small ramshackle homes and trailers lead the way to the water and the high-dollar homes there, many occupied only seasonally.

"The cost of housing locally, quite frankly, has squeezed out the middle class," explained retiring Del. Albert C. Pollard Jr., D-Lancaster.

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The town of Montross, near George Washington's birthplace in Westmoreland County, rises from the seemingly endless fields of corn, soybeans, wheat and barley along state Route 3.

Gary Sisson farms 250 acres there, much of which has been in his family since 1809. His father and grandfather were grain farmers, but Sisson was forced to expand the operation to raise a family.

"For me to make a living, I had to go into vegetables," he said.

He's done well at that, and operates a popular produce stand that his mother helps him run while he works the farm. But he said the cost of farming has made turning a profit increasingly challenging.

"It's a whole lot more expensive to operate now with the cost of fuel health insurance so high," he said, adding that none of his three children — one of whom works for the federal government with the other two in college — will take over the family business.

"It's just not enough acreage for them to make a living doing it," he said.

Sisson's situation is not unique. Fewer young people are choosing to move into agriculture, and the mechanization of farming has created fewer job opportunities for those who might.

While some large family-owned farms survive, the cost of starting a new business is far out of reach for most.

"You're either born into it, or you're not going to get into it," said Don G. Gill, a farmer and Lancaster County's planning director.

Fishing is still king in Reedville, a historic fishing town in Northumberland County, though the menhaden-fishing industry that built the town — once making it the wealthiest town in America per capita — is a far cry from what it once was.

The evidence of that bygone era is still prominently displayed on the town's Main Street, which is lined by Victorian mansions built by ship captains and factory owners, earning it the name Millionaires' Row.

As the industry has declined, most of the factories have closed, but Omega Protein remains one of the region's largest employers and Reedville one of the nation's leading fishing ports.

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Recognizing the changing landscape, local leaders have attempted to draw new, more modern opportunities for younger generations, meeting with little luck.

The challenges are many, especially for the remote Northern Neck, which is not easily accessible by the state's major roadways.

"There are no four-lane highways that go through Lancaster County. There's a four-lane highway in the middle of Lancaster County, connected by two two-lanes, which makes absolutely no sense," Pennell said with a laugh.

Another issue that both regions face is technology, or the lack thereof. Ten counties recently joined forces to twice apply for federal stimulus dollars to bring broadband Internet to the area, but lost out in both rounds to rural areas of the state to the west.

"We have folks here who love the lifestyle and would love to work here, but it's just really tough without good broadband," said Mathews County Administrator Stephen K. Whiteway.

Whiteway, a former Richmond County administrator, said Mathews is seeing some working-age residents moving in and commuting to Hampton Roads, but noted that "the Northern Neck is a tougher nut to crack."

Adding to the difficulty, said Pennell, a member of an upstart organization called Visions that is working to reduce poverty and increase middle-class opportunities in the Northern Neck, is resistance to change from newcomers.

"We have a group of people who have moved in here who don't want things to change from the time they got here. When we try to bring in business, we have the Board of Supervisors' room fill up with antis, and no pros," he said. "A lot of the folks who came here are well-to-do and they only want more well-to-do people to come here. They don't understand the impact it has on this community."

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In Westmoreland's Colonial Beach, a once-busy gambling town built around a natural beach on the Potomac River, some are hoping for a renaissance.

John and Cheryl Leckey moved there 25 years ago, him commuting each day to Richmond where he worked at the airport before retiring years ago.

"We just always loved it here. Our parents used to bring us when we were kids and they had all the slot machines," he said. "Now we're seeing some younger families moving in. It's less than two hours to D.C., so for a lot of people it's perfect."

Henry Canby, from Old Town Alexandria, was found relaxing on the porch of his sister Connie Canby's home, a charming yellow river house on the beach with a view of the Maryland coastline 8 miles away.

"It's a really charming, lovely place, but there are no workers down here," he said. "If you want something done, you have to hire me to come down from Old Town to do it."

But Canby said that as the price of real estate in the Washington area grows increasingly beyond reach for many, families will trickle down, hopefully bringing jobs with them.

"My projection is that in the next 10 to 15 years, this place will economically solidify and get its rudder back in the water," he said, adding that if Maryland adopts more liberal gambling laws, the town could once again cash in as anything beyond the shoreline, including riverboats, are in Maryland.

In Warsaw, the county seat of bucolic Richmond County, there's a little less optimism in the quaint town with the strains of its ailing economy on display, with shuttered storefronts seeming to outnumber those open for business.

The county has launched a revitalization grant program to try and address the situation, offering small-business owners tax incentives for taking over the closed businesses, but the challenge of luring larger industry is proving more challenging as evidenced by its largely empty industrial park.

Lee Francis, managing editor for the Northern Neck News and its sister papers in Northumberland and Westmoreland counties, said the county had hoped the park, built years ago, would attract small to medium-sized tenants like a similar one in the town of Kilmarnock in Lancaster.

"They actually have stuff in their business park," he said, describing Richmond's as "a cornfield and one building."

Francis said the problems presented by the changing economy demographics are already upon the county.

"They're trying to build a new $23 million high school, and to do that, there's no tax base except for real estate," he said. "That's a big issue."

Asked if he thought there is anything the Northern Neck could do to draw younger generations, Francis paused.

"I don't know. They're building an arcade in Northumberland," he said with a smile.