Natural resources officials and the Center for the Inland Bays are at a “stalemate” in a plan to protect the shoreline of the Indian River Bay at the James Farm Ecological Preserve.
Since 2000, Center officials have been studying a privately-funded plan to restore Pasture Point, a small peninsula off James Farm in the Indian River Bay that protects the shoreline from erosion. The Point itself has been the victim of erosion and the subject of a far-reaching restoration project that has been hung up in the permitting phase with state natural resources officials since 2005.
“We’re really, right now, at a stalemate,” said Ed Lewandowski, executive director for the Center for the Inland Bays.
Under current restoration plans, center officials hope to restore the Point with 8,800 square feet of sand and 114,830 square feet of marsh. It would be protected from erosion by 33,246 square feet of rock.
From 1998 to 2002, erosion at the Point clamed 4.5 acres of land in a continuing trend. Lewandowski said last Friday that the project would cost several hundred thousand dollars but did not pinpoint an exact cost. Officials hope to use fill from the Assawoman Canal dredging project, which could become unavailable and make the project more costly if the stalemate persists.
Most of the contention about the project surrounds the rock, which is not a natural habitat and could pose an environmental and navigational threat in the Indian River Bay, according to Joanne Haughey, a Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control official in the wetland section. Concerns have delayed the necessary permitting process with the state department.
Haughey, who has been working on the project since 2005, told a group of environmentalists last Friday at a center committee meeting that the rock would have detrimental effects on terrapin and horseshoe crab populations in the bay. Replacing the rock in the plan with fill and riprap would carry detrimental consequences for shallow-water populations, such as shellfish and nursery fish habitats, Haughey added. Haughey recommended studying a plan to create a more environmentally-friendly and fitting shell bar to protect the Point.
“Rock is not a natural habitat. We feel it is the wrong message to send,” Haughey told Center officials last week. “This is an education center. We feel this project as presented to us has very bad environmental consequences.”
Evelyn Maurmeyer, an environmental consultant retained by the Center who pointed out that DNREC officials often recommend rock protection in the bays, disagreed.
“I do not think it is incompatible,” she said of the rock.
Officials presented the information on the project and the stalemate at a Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee last Friday. A subcommittee was formed to study the issue and is expected to only meet three times before returning with a recommendation.