November 26, 2018 — Billions of dollars have been spent on the recovery from Superstorm Sandy to help people get their lives back together, but a little-noticed portion of that effort is quietly helping another population along the shoreline: fish that need to migrate from coastal rivers out to the sea and back.
After the 2012 storm, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent nearly $11 million on a series of projects to remove dams and other blockages from coastal waters in six states, partnering with local environmental groups. Fish species that were scarce or entirely absent from those waterways for years soon began showing up again.
The so-called “aquatic connectivity” projects in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia were part of a $105 million effort not only to fix what was damaged by Sandy, but also to improve environmental conditions in places where recreational benefits could help tourism and the economy, as well. While the storm did its worst damage in New York and New Jersey, its effects were felt in many states along the East Coast.
“The idea was not only to do good things for fish and wildlife, but to provide community benefits and make communities more resilient,” said Rick Bennett, a scientist with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Massachusetts. “By removing dams, you also reduce flooding, especially upstream.”
Aquatic species benefiting from the work include the Eastern Brook trout, sea run brown trout, sea lamprey, American eel and river herring.
One of the first and most successful projects happened in Spring Lake, New Jersey’s Wreck Pond. For years, the conflicting goals of protecting the environment and some of the New Jersey shore’s priciest real estate from storms have bedeviled the pond.
Storms sometimes open a channel between the 48-acre tidal pond and the ocean, but governments keep sealing it shut to protect homes from flooding. The result was poor water quality and much narrower access to the ocean, which hurts fish that travel from ocean to pond to breed.
The American Littoral Society oversaw construction of a concrete culvert between the pond and the ocean to make it easier for fish, including herring, to reach the sea. In addition to letting fish in and out more easily, the culvert can be opened or closed as needed during storms to control flooding.
It succeeded at both goals, said Tim Dillingham, the group’s executive director.
“The restoration of connectivity to allow fish to return and spawn has been a great success,” he said. “We’re seeing fish come back in numbers we hadn’t seen before. And it has also added to the resiliency of the area during storms, by adding capacity to deal with flooding.”