ACCA Board Members, Rick Landau and Gail Robinson met with Laura Wildman, PE, Save the Sound’s Regional Director of Ecological Restoration on October 18th. We gave her, Josh Garskof, Director of Foundation Relations, and Emma DeLoughry, Associate Soundkeeper at Save the Sound a tour of our tidal estuary.
As you know, our barrier spit at St. Mary’s has lost 60 linear of shoreline due to erosion. It has also lost its dunes and is vulnerable to washover during heavy storms. The southern shoreline is hard cobble where once there was sand. Our scientists have estimated that the barrier spit could vanish in 14 years (or less if there is a heavy storm).
ACCA was successful in getting Fairfield and Bridgeport to plant 42,000 plugs of American Beach grass on the spit this past Spring as an emergency measure. The vegetation will help prevent further erosion from storms, but it is not a full restoration of the barrier spit. A full restoration would include sand to restore height and dunes as well as sand along the shoreline. The cost of this in 2014 was $300,000. Today the cost would be $500,000 or more. Costs continue to rise, so we must act now!
Great Marsh Island has lost 27,000 SF of marsh land, several trees have fallen into Ash Creek along the shoreline, and there are other areas of the shoreline that are dealing with erosion issues.
If we do nothing, all of Ash Creek’s tidal wetlands will be gone by the end of the century!
This is why we are investigating living shoreline solutions with Save the Sound. We want to maintain this amazing wildlife habitat for migratory shorebirds, shellfish, and many other species.
This is a complicated tidal estuary with a navigable channel that must be maintained for the South Benson marina and a municipal boundary line that divides the barrier spit, Great Marsh Island, and the rest of the tidal estuary. This means the needs of boaters and nature have to be considered and cooperation is needed between two municipalities. ACCA is nature’s advocate along with Aspetuck Land Trust, which owns the Bridgeport half of Great Marsh Island.
ACCA is an all volunteer, grassroots organization. We must partner with a larger environmental organization to save our tidal estuary. We are already partnering with Save the Sound on the Unified Water Study, so it made sense to extend our partnership to the restoration project. Save the Sound has the resources to hire the coastal engineers, obtain permits, a project manager, and get federal funding for this very expensive and complex project.
We are excited about our partnership with Save the Sound and hope you are, too!
