Saving Seafood

NOAA announces $4 million in funding to build coastal resilience

December 1, 2015 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

As part of its efforts to provide communities and businesses with products, tools, services, and funding to better address weather- and climate-related threats, today NOAA announced $4 million in recommended funding for six habitat restoration projects across the United States.

The projects recommended for funding, under NOAA’s 2015 Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency Grants Program, focus on dam removal in New England, creation of living shorelines in North Carolina, and reconnection of rivers to floodplains and flood protection in Washington, Florida, Massachusetts and California.

“Funding these innovative habitat restoration projects supports our mission of fostering resilient coastal communities and sustainable marine resources, and that’s a priority for us,” said Eileen Sobeck, assistant NOAA administrator for fisheries. “These on-the-ground restoration projects, along with the other restoration projects we support, will enhance ecosystem resilience against extreme weather and changing environmental conditions, provide habitat to support sustainable fisheries, and help recover protected species.”

Habitat restoration experts from around the country selected these projects based on rigorous reviews and a highly competitive process. Recommended projects have been approved by their state’s Governor’s offices. At least $2 million in the federal grants will be matched by applicants, and the projects must begin within 12 months of funding.

NOAA is taking a multifaceted approach to building coastal resilience through two grant programs. NOAA Fisheries’ Coastal Ecosystem Resiliency Grants program is dedicated to the development of healthy and sustainable coastal ecosystems through habitat restoration. A complementary NOAA National Ocean Service grant program, the Regional Coastal Resilience Grants, focuses on regional-scale projects that enhance the resilience of coastal communities and economies to effects of extreme weather, climate hazards, and changing ocean conditions. Activities may include improving coastal risk assessment and communication, promoting collaborative approaches to resilience planning, and better informing science based decision making.

The National Ocean Service plans to announce the results of that grant competition in early 2016.

Application approval and funding is not yet final. Divisions of NOAA and the Department of Commerce must still give final approval for the projects. 

Aquaculture on the rise in coastal North Carolina

October 22, 2015 — NEW HANOVER COUNTY, N.C. – Nearly all of southeastern North Carolina’s waters are now open for shellfish harvesting after heavy rains and floods left most areas polluted earlier this month.

Not only are oysters one of the state’s most popular shellfish to eat, but the shells themselves can be used as hardworking landscape material, in the form of driveways and patios.

Oyster shells make up many of the paths at Colonial Williamsburg to to get around. But starting October 1, a new law went into effect prohibiting contractors from using the shells in commercial landscaping.

The new law is an effort to increase the state’s oyster shell recycling program, where the shells are used to rebuilt oyster reefs.

“Oysters happen to be one of the few species that when we harvest it, we take the habitat right along with it, so we are trying to put that back into place,” said UNC-Wilmington’s Troy Alphin. “Larvae oysters depend on the adult oyster shell for settlement, and they have a very narrow window for settlement in their life span, only a couple of weeks. So if the shells are not in the water, they are not available for the larvae to settle on, these larvae will die. What we are trying to do is make sure the shells are back in the water as soon as we can they will be available for the next generation of oysters.”

At a summit earlier this year, North Carolina ecologists, scientists and politicians announced new efforts to make North Carolina the “Napa Valley of Oysters.”  One way that can be accomplished is by developing new oyster sanctuaries, something that Virginia and other states have already done.

A healthy oyster population is linked to the overall health of coastal fisheries.

Read the full story at WECT6