Wachapreague, VA Coastal Erosion Rate
Is the coast eroding 5.7 miles southeast of Wachapreague, VA?
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 5.7 miles southeast of Wachapreague, VA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
The grain of this number
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Wachapreague, VA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 37.54, -75.63. The survey behind it runs to 2007-2009, in USGS's New England / Mid-Atlantic assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
How solid is this number
Averaging 61 separate transects produced this segment's rate, with 82% individually reading as erosion, rather than relying on any single survey line. USGS's confidence interval here is ±2.82 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, -1.31 ft/yr, would place it 175 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2010-1119. Moss Landing, CA sits at national rank 958 for growth (0.27 ft/yr), one reference point among the 1211 scored segments, 2516 miles from here. 2.1 miles away, Wachapreague, VA is the nearest other measured stretch: also no significant trend.
Wachapreague, VA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.