As sea levels rise and buildings by coasts are increasingly endangered, communities around the world are turning to the small but mighty oyster to help stabilize shorelines. By establishing oyster colonies along badly eroded shorelines, governments and volunteer groups are creating natural speed bumps designed to blunt the force of waves and slow down erosion.
Samples collected by students, workers and volunteers, associated with NY/NJ Baykeeper, as gather marine life data in the waters near Soundview Park July 18, 2018 in New York. - The Soundview oyster reef monitoring event brought the group together toDenise Vaccaro bought her home on the Jersey Shore over 20 years ago, charmed by the little beach at the end of a sandy spit on Barnegat Bay where she could sit and read while listening to the waves and enjoying the cool breezes.
Such a project is underway near Vaccaro's rebuilt house, carried out by the American Littoral Society, which received a $1 million grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The group has been building steel wire cages, filling them with rocks and whelk shells and positioning them in rows along the shoreline of Barnegat Bay.
In much of it, there is no sand at all; waves pound against grassy mounds that are getting smaller all the time. A shuffleboard court that used to be part of a wide beach with plenty of sand between it and the bay is now halfway submerged in water. As an added benefit, the oysters help improve water quality in the bay: A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.Projects like this one are an important part of New Jersey's coastal resilience program — using plants and shellfish beds to create "living shorelines" that complement engineered structures like sea walls and bulkheads to protect homes and people.
"In the last 100 years, Mordecai Island has lost 35% of its size," said Jack Duggan, a longtime volunteer with the group. "If we do nothing, in 40 years the island will be gone — just washed over. This island protects Beach Haven from taking the force of all that wave action."Coastal storms that have battered the New Jersey coast have caused beach erosion that has taken North Wildwood millions to fix before Memorial Day Weekend.
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