The Gloucester County Wetlands Board approved four shoreline improvement applications during a meeting held Thursday, Nov. 12 in the colonial courthouse. The meeting was held on Thursday because its regular Wednesday meeting day was Veterans Day.

Robert Ripley received authorization to continue an existing sill system northward for about 340 feet adjacent to property situated along the York River at 3051 Ginny Hill Road. Ripley and his wife Lynn own the historic property where Chief Powhatan’s Werowocomoco settlement was located when the early English settlers arrived at Jamestown.

Linda Walthall, administrative coordinator for environmental programs in the Gloucester Environmental Programs office, said that the Ripleys also received the go-ahead to install two gapped sills with combined length about 320 linear feet as well as 1,175 cubic yards of sill fill, 13,600-square-feet fill/plantings (spartina patens and spartina alterniflora).

Following a separate public hearing, the ...