Fisheries Habitat Enhancement Project Wins 2009 Coastal America Partnership Award
Hail Cove restoration project restored one acre of fisheries habitat
On April 21, 2010, the FishAmerica Foundation and the National Aquarium in Baltimore and its partners celebrated the November 2009 completion of the Hail Cove Restoration Project The project was awarded the 2009 Coastal America Partnership Award for outstanding efforts to restore and protect the coastal environment. The award is the highest level award from the President of the United States that recognizes outstanding collaborative, multi-agency, and multi-stakeholder efforts to accomplish coastal restoration, preservation, protection, and education projects.
In March 2009, the National Aquarium in Baltimore received $20,000 from the foundation through its partnership with the Chesapeake Bay Trust to restore one acre of fisheries habitat along Hail Cove, a tributary to the Chester River located within the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge. The Aquarium raised nearly $500,000 in cash and in-kind donations from 20 partners to complete this fisheries habitat restoration project. The project was featured in ASA’s January/February 2010 edition of American Sportfishing.
The National Aquarium, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and Ducks Unlimited lead the partnership of 20 organizations which included funding partners such as the FishAmerica Foundation, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, Chesapeake Marshlands Refuge Complex, Chesapeake Bay Field Office Coastal Program and funds from the North American Wetlands Conservation Act.
FishAmerica Foundation Executive Director Johanna Laderman, front row, left, helps celebrate the Hail Cove Restoration Project and its 2009 Coastal America Partnership Award.
Group to Restore Historic Salmon Habitat in Sandy River Basin
Multi-year project to drastically improve nearly three miles of critical habitat
In November 2009, the FishAmerica Foundation (FAF), in partnership with the NOAA Restoration Center, awarded $50,000 to the Freshwater Trust in Portland, Ore., to restore more than a half mile of critical juvenile salmonid rearing habitat along the Salmon River, a tributary to the Sandy River. The Freshwater Trust leveraged an additional $900,000 in cash and in-kind donations to complete this fisheries habitat restoration project. This is an 18-to-1 leverage of FishAmerica funds.
The Freshwater Trust and its partners successfully opened this side channel and restored its critical salmonid rearing habitat.
The Salmon River originates on the slopes of Mount Hood and flows through the Cascade foothills to the Sandy River in Brightwood, Ore. Flowing in a northwesterly direction from its headwaters, the Salmon River drains forested and rural residential lands before joining the Sandy River. Long-term watershed changes have affected the hydrologic regime and fish populations.
“After a major flood in 1964, many reaches of the Salmon River were straightened and dikes were built in a mistaken attempt to prevent future flooding. This channelization, coupled with the loss of the large wood supply from the river’s riparian corridor, decreased overall habitat diversity and complexity which is essential for salmon spawning and rearing,” said FAF Executive Director Johanna Laderman.
Blocked since the 1960s the channel will reopen this summer, providing more than a half mile of critical rearing habitat for coho, spring Chinook and winter steelhead.
Through the FAF/NOAA grant, the Freshwater Trust and its partners will restore habitat to benefit federally-listed spring Chinook, coho and winter steelhead on the Salmon River, an ecologically significant tributary of the Sandy River. The project will restore 3,000 feet of salmonid rearing habitat in a side channel, and will restore surface flow and channel complexity to 2,000 feet of stream through the placement of log jams and large wood structures and the creation of riffles and pools along this stretch of stream.
The project is part of the Freshwater Trust’s long time effort to complete large-scale restoration work in the Sandy River basin. Over the next several years, the Freshwater Trust and partners will restore habitat complexity to an 11,500-foot reach of the Salmon River by implementing nearly 40 restoration actions, including side channel restoration and installing engineered log jams, large wood habitat features and pool-tailout habitat features.
Fish Passage Improvement in the Long Island Sound
Partners Celebrate Success of ARRA-funded Project
Incorrectly positioned metal culverts threatened one of Long Island Sound’s most important alewife runs.
The Bride Brook Restoration Project successfully prevented shutdown of the second most important alewife run in Long Island Sound.
On April 19, 2010, Fish American Foundation Executive Director Johanna Laderman, joined Congressman Joe Courtney, (D-CN) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the NOAA Restoration Center, the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Restore America’s Estuaries, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and Connecticut Fund for the Environment at the dedication of the Bride Brook restoration project at Rocky Neck State Park in East Lyme, Conn. The project enhanced more than five river miles and 72 acres of lake for fish migration and spawning habitat improving the sportfishing experience for Connecticut’s 300,000 anglers.
Despite its small size, Bride Brook actually hosts the second largest run of alewives in the state, bested only by the Connecticut River. Other project partners included the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, the Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the NOAA Restoration Center.
Save the Sound received a $27,200 grant from the foundation through its partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program to replace two undersized culverts with an open channel to provide fish passage for alewives, American shad and blueback herring to critical spawning habitat.
The Bride Brook Restoration Project successfully prevented shutdown of the second most important alewife run in Long Island Sound, enhanced more than five river miles and 72 acres of lake for fish migration and spawning habitat while restoring more than 81 acres of estuarine marsh, and improving water quality. The Bride Brook project is part of a larger project in the West River watershed. In addition to replacing the culvert, project partners revegetated more than 20 acres of dune habitat and created new pedestrian access to the eastern part of the park.
Johanna Laderman (front, left), executive director of the FishAmerica Foundation, is joined by Dr. Paul Phifer, Assistant Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Ecological Services Division; Congressman Joe Courtney (D-Conn.); Douglas L. Zehner, State Conservationist, Natural Resources Conservation Service; Connecticut DEP Deputy Commissioner Susan Frechette; and Don Strait, executive director of Connecticut Fund for the Environment (speaking) to celebrate the restoration of this critical fisheries spawning habitat in Rocky Neck State Park, Connecticut.