VIRGINIA BEACH — Buddy Lilley has lived across the street from Naval Air Station Oceana since 1950. He remembers when a large part of his family’s land on Oceana Boulevard was a cornfield.

In the late 1980s, his parents leased most of it to a sand company to be used as a borrow pit. Once the sand excavation was completed, the 50-foot deep pit filled with rainwater and has been a lake for many years.

In 2017, Lilley sold the land to the city — reluctantly, he said. On Tuesday, the City Council will decide whether the city can fill it with dredged material from navigation channels and stormwater projects. The council deferred a vote on the matter last month after Lilley, other neighbors and environmental groups expressed concerns about flooding, water contamination and wildlife.

“I get real depressed over all this,” Lilley said on a recent afternoon while standing under a tree in between his house and the lake. “That dump is going to come right into my yard.”

He walked the southern edge of the lake with Steve Conrad, chair of the Delta Waterfowl Foundation’s Back Bay chapter, and Councilman Worth Remick, who represents the district. Dozens of small fish swam near the shallow edges where the water looked clear.

“It’s pristine,” said Remick. “I feel like I could drink it.”

A turtle’s head poked through the surface, and a large goose rested on the north bank. Eagles and osprey hunt in the lake, and it holds hundreds of ducks in the winter.

“It’s a thriving ecosystem,” said Conrad.

In 2016, the City Council approved the purchase of Lilley’s property for the “deposit of dredged spoils,” according to the city ordinance that Public Works Director L.J. Hansen showed the City Council for the first time last Tuesday.

Several council members at the meeting seemed to be leaning toward approving the use after seeing the ordinance.

“It appears to me that it was made plain when we purchased the property,” said Councilwoman Barbara Henley.

Filling the lake is not expected to increase flooding in the area because it will become more pervious, City Engineer Toni Utterback said.

“If I’m understanding it right, that adding the dredged material into this would actually benefit the surrounding areas when it came to flooding,” Councilman Stacy Cummings said.

“Correct, it’s going to improve the runoff,” Utterback said.

The city plans to build a 2-foot berm around the eastern end of the lake to protect adjacent properties along Birdneck Road.

Council members had also asked for alternative deposit locations. Only private options may be available, but would be more than 20 miles away and would come at a cost to certain taxpayers, Hansen said. The tax rate for six neighborhood special service districts would increase if dredged material is hauled to a private site for disposal, he said.

While at the Oceana borrow-pit site last week, Remick said it will fit the immediate need, but he wants to explore other options for the future.

“We need to look at other locations in the city,” Remick said.

Some of the neighboring properties, including Lilley’s, use well water. The city has installed monitoring systems, and Hansen reassured the council that filling the lake will not affect their water source. Any drinking water issues would fall on the city’s shoulders, he said.

“In the extremely unlikely event that we’ve missed on every one of our understandings, the city would be responsible for coming in and establishing a drinking water source for those neighbors if we were to damage it,” Hansen said.

Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson asked about how the wildlife will be affected. Hansen said the land is zoned industrial and has not been evaluated for its impact on wildlife.

“I think we need to stick with what our intention was for this property,” said Councilman Joash Schulman.

Mayor Bobby Dyer agreed.

“I think we have a predetermined outcome,” he said.