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Project Title: Indian Point Salt Marsh Restoration (FFS #R2FA)
State: Texas
Project Description: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has approved a cooperative agreement with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP) and will provide federal stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) to help restore lost marsh habitat in Nueces Bay, near Corpus Christi, Texas.
The Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and restoring bays and estuaries in the 12-county region of the Texas Coastal Bend. CBBEP is partially funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. For more information about CBBEP visit their web site at http://www.cbbep.org.
“We are pleased and excited to have this opportunity to begin restoring precious wetlands and providing habitat for a variety of wildlife on the Texas coast,” said Benjamin Tuggle, PhD, Regional Director for the Service’s Southwest Region, which includes Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. “This is a great example of how Recovery Act funds create work and benefit communities.”
The Service selected the Indian Point Salt Marsh Restoration Project because of its benefits to fish, shellfish, and migratory birds, readiness to begin as well as the jobs that will be created during construction.
Research conducted by CBBEP found a total of 340 acres of salt marsh in Nueces Bay adjacent to Indian Point has been lost. Of that total, 180 acres of marsh were lost due to causeway construction and related dredging, and another 160 has been lost since then due to erosion and subsidence. This project will address those 160 acres of salt marsh.
The CBBEP, with technical assistance from the Service’s Coastal Program, began work in 2006 to plan for the marsh restoration project. Federal Recovery Act money will help pay for the first phase of the project which will restore 30 acres of productive salt marsh. The remaining 130 acres will be restored as more funding becomes available.
These intertidal wetlands are critical because they serve as nursery habitat for a variety of sea life including commercially and recreationally important species such as shrimp, crabs, and fish. They also protect infrastructure from wind and waves.
Construction for this first phase should begin in October 2009, and is expected to be completed by March 2010. The project has been engineered in distinct phases so that as additional funding becomes available more of the marsh will be restored.
Read more and watch coverage of the Indian Point Salt Marsh Restoration project on KII TV3’s website! (Note: if you click on this link, you will be redirected to an outside site.)
Photos:
 Indian Point Saltmarsh, which with be restored with Recovery Act funding |
 The habitat restoration will benefit fish, shellfish, and migratory birds |
Originally posted 07/29/2009
Updated 08/20/2009
Updated 08/25/2009
