...to preserve, protect, develop, and restore coastal resources for all Rhode Islanders
CRMC announces funding for three habitat restoration projects
April 20, 2005, WAKEFIELD — The RI Coastal Resources Management Council has awarded almost $100,000 in matching funds for three habitat restoration projects. The council approved the funds at their April 12 meeting, for projects that will inventory 50 Rhode Island coastal wetland sites, construct a fish ladder in South Kingstown and update mapping of Narragansett Bay's underwater aquatic vegetation.
The Rhode Island Coastal Wetlands Inventory project will catalogue degraded or filled coastal wetlands stretching from the state's western border to Narragansett Bay, to identify opportunities for future wetland restoration projects. The Army Corps of Engineers will conduct the inventory. The Corps will then release a report with details of each wetland or site studied. Congress will provide $65,000 in funding for the Corps under the Planning Assistance to States (PAS) program for the $130,000 project; CRMC awarded $14,725 toward the project.
The Factory Brook Fishway project calls for the construction of a fish ladder at a small, privately owned dam on Matunuck Schoolhouse Road in South Kingstown, which would restore a river herring run to the brook. As it is now, the five-foot high stone dam prevents passage to spawning and nursery habitat in Factory Pond and one mile of stream habitat in Factory Brook. In addition to river herring, the project may also benefit sea-run brook trout. The state Department of Environmental Management's Division of Fish and Wildlife, the NOAA Restoration Center and the USFWS are project partners, and the CRMC is contributing $35,000 in funds for the $120,500 project. Construction of the ladder is scheduled for this fall.
The council will also contribute $50,000 to Save The Bay and the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program for the purposes of updating submerged aquatic vegetation mapping efforts, to acquire and process new aerial images of the bay and conduct field work to validate information interpreted on those images. Save The Bay will also hire a coastal remote sensing consultant who specializes in eelgrass restoration to evaluate the eelgrass cover in the bay. The project will begin in May or June.
Habitat restoration projects are funded through the RI Coastal and Estuarine Habitat Restoration Trust Fund and are selected from recommendations by the RI Habitat Restoration Team, established by CRMC, Save The Bay and the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program in 1998. The team serves as a technical advisory committee for the CRMC as required by law. Funds for the program come from the state's oil spill response account, established by the state legislature following the 1996 North Cape oil spill.
The CRMC also awarded funding in February for three additional restoration projects totaling $150,275 for the Walker Farm Salt Marsh Restoration in Barrington ($30,000); construction of a fish ladder on Kickemuit Reservoir in Warren ($40,187); and the Town Pond Salt Marsh Restoration Project in Portsmouth ($80,088). Money for these projects also came from the Trust Fund.