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FIGHTING CREEPING EROSION; Sandbag project aims to keep Cape Fear island for the birds



http://starnews.wilmington.net/daily/02022000/front_pa/7842.htm

Unfortunately, I can't send the above as an attachment, but I thought
that many of the subscribers would like to know of this great project.

Hope you will look it up to see a great use of our tax dollars.

Buddy
-- 
Charles L “Buddy” Garrett, MD
medxam@onslowonline.net
Coastal Pathology Associates, PA
132 Dockside Dr
Jacksonville, NC 28546
w-910-577-2286    h-577-6776
Title: FIGHTING CREEPING EROSION; Sandbag project aims to keep Cape Fear island for the birds


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FIGHTING CREEPING EROSION; Sandbag project aims to keep Cape Fear island for the birds


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Front Page / Wednesday, February2, 2000

BY BRIAN FEAGANS Staff Writer
Wilmington Morning Star

Copyright 1999 Wilmington Star-News, Inc.
WILMINGTON, N.C. -- BATTERY ISLAND - Wearing wetsuits and hardhats, workers unfurled a 120-foot-long sack and prepared to pump it full of sand Tuesday on this uninhabited island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River.
   You might say they were rolling out the red carpet, at least from a bird's-eye view.
   That's because the polyester bag was one of the last pieces in a mile-long sand tube wall intended to restore the beach and save nesting habitat on Battery Island, which hosts 10 percent of the world's population of white ibis.
   The new wall, which looks like a line of giant sausage links, is part of a $1 million effort by the state and the Army Corps of Engineers to prevent more nest-holding trees from crashing into the river along the south- and west-facing shores. Next week, crews will begin filling in the beach behind the sand tubes with sand pumped from the bottom of the Cape Fear.
   As boat traffic has |picked up along the river, so has the erosion that has claimed 90 to 120 feet of beach, said Walker Golder, sanctuary manager for the National Audubon Society.
   The conservation group, which has a 50-year lease on the state-owned island, decided to push for a beach replenishment project years ago when the cedars and yaupons that support nests started crashing into the water.
   "That says it all," Mr. Golder said, standing over the twisted roots of a cedar tree toppled by the hand of erosion. "Before it fell over the edge, that tree was probably full of white ibis nests."
   Of the 10 bird species that nest on the island, three - the little blue heron, snowy egret and glossy ibis - are listed as species of concern by the state. But the island oasis, which is virtually free of predators such as fox and raccoon, is best known in conservation circles for its colony of white ibis.
   The first pair of white ibises arrived on this 100-acre patchwork of sand and marsh in 1963, when it marked the northernmost extent of the wading bird's range. By last year, the island's cedars and yaupons hosted 8,500 pairs, roughly 10 percent of the world's white ibis population.
   It has become such a hub for the species that the American Bird Conservancy recently declared Battery Island "globally important" for white ibises.
   "The island has really reached its carrying capacity," Mr. Golder said. "If you lose trees, you might very well lose birds."
   The beach-building project due to be completed by the end of the month should change all that, said Hugh Heine, a biologist with the corps' district office in Wilmington.
   Next week, crews will begin filling in the beach behind the sand tubes with 30,000 cubic yards of sand that has settled into the Cape Fear shipping channel. The dredged sand and mud is normally dumped at sea.
   The corps considered fortifying the shore with a more durable substance such as large rocks, but a "rip-rap" wall would have cost five to six times as much, Mr. Heine said. The agency also discarded the idea of pumping sand onto the eroding beaches regularly because environmental regulators frown on projects that muddy up fish habitat each year, he said.
   The sand tubes are resistant to ultraviolet light and can withstand 1,100 pounds per square inch of pressure. But they will inevitably tear in some places, Mr. Heine said, and the state will have the responsibility of patching them.
   Sand tubes have been used to preserve bird nesting habitat at Harker's Island and Wainwright Island in North Carolina, and more recently to create wetlands in Maryland, Mr. Heine said.
   "This is probably the largest project of its kind on the East Coast," he said.
   Tuesday, workers for Atlantic Diving & Marine Contractors Inc. spread the deflated sand tube across a metal frame that held it open in the shallow water along the island's south shore.
   Like an elephant taking a drink, a nearby dredge dangled its hose into the beach and started sucking up sand. Jets at the mouth of the hose shot out water to loosen the sand before each gulp.
   The dredge, mounted on a beached barge, shot sand into the tube as workers stood in the water to monitor the inflating sack.
   Filling each tube can take three to seven hours, said Mike Mishoe, the crew's foreman. The workers, who started in October, had only four tubes left Tuesday.
   The corps is paying for 65 percent of the project, while the N.C. Division of Water Resources is picking up the rest of the $1 million tab.
   The first beneficiaries of the project won't be ibises but oyster catchers, orange-billed birds that nest in open sandy areas.
   Their eggs are often destroyed when the wakes of passing ships send salty water sweeping over the dry-sand beach, Mr. Golder said.
   Last year, for example, only two of the island's 10 oyster-catcher nests produced chicks.
   "With all this beach," Mr. Golder said, "they're going to be all over it this year."
  
  


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