Activities at Cape May Plant Materials Center (PMC)

Cape May PMC in the News

Cape May Plant Materials Center is assisting with restoration at Wanchese Harbor.  The following article and photos appeared in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers June 2007 newsletter. The entire newsletter is available as a PDF file
Wilmington District News Online, June 2007 (2MB)

Through Trial and Error, Wanchese Harbor Project Off to a Good Start
Biology and Engineering Working in Tandem

It’s only 10 acres in size, but it’s making a huge mark in ecosystem restoration in North Carolina.

Coastal wetlands that used to exist helped protect the entrance at Wanchese Harbor from erosion, had whittled down over the years to a thin strip of vegetation that was incapable of stopping further erosion. In addition, it ceased being a sanctuary for small creatures. It threatened not only the harbor entrance that leads fishermen to open ocean, but the North Carolina Seafood Industrial Park as well. Then the Beneficial Use of Dredged Material Interagency Work Group stepped in to offer a solution; a project that would give Wilmington District biologists and engineers an opportunity to use dredged material from a nearby navigation channel to restore the estuarine habitat and protect the remaining marsh.

“The Wanchese Harbor is an important harbor area,” said Wilmington District Marine Biologist Chuck Wilson. “We used dredged material from the navigation channel to try and stop erosion and bring back the ecological balance that was once there.”

So far, Wilson said the project is working. Plants are thriving, and a variety of waterfowl are beginning to investigate the man-made area. However, the initial stages of the project were a guessing game of trying to build an ecosystem from scratch. Through adaptive management the team found an excellent formula that worked.

Part of recreating a wetlands area is knowing plant survivability. The live plant on the right has a more developed root system. Chuck Wilson photo	Bill Skaradek from the US Department of Agriculture examines test plots of US Government grown plants at the Wanchese Harbor restoration site. Chuck Wilson photo	Wilson and MAJ Hilliard inspect the contours of the site at normal high tide. Bill Dennis photo	Skaradek shows Chuck Wilson (left) and Project Manager MAJ Rob Hilliard samples of recently planted marsh grasses that are thriving at the site. Bill Dennis photo

Bill Dennis helped design the Wanchese Harbor Project. “The most difficult thing we had to work with was the different sediments that eventually got into the basin,” he said. “There was a whole range of coarse sands, silt, and clay, quite a mixture. To come up with a way to contour the area to meet specific elevation requirements with all of that mix was difficult. There was a lot of ‘guesstimation’ as well. So it took some effort on the construction side because we needed something stable that we could smooth into the contours.”

From an engineering standpoint Dennis said the key was to establish and maintain the right elevation so plants would take root and be able to exist in the fluctuating tide as nature had intended. From the biological side, Wilson said a combination of hard science, intuition and applying what they had learned from restoring shoreline marsh at Festival Park gave them insight into how the plants would probably grow with the unpredictable fluctuation of the tide. The thriving growth of the recently planted marsh grasses was a good indicator of the overall health of the emerging ecosystem, and it also was a good sign that the elevations grade and planting operations were correct.

“The marsh grasses are growing well, and we have about 90 percent survival of plants. Ducks and geese are already using the new marsh which is a good sign of it being a potential wildlife habitat. We just hope they don’t graze too much.”

Wilson said the majority of those plants were provided by a planting contractor. However, a portion came from the Cape May Plant Material Center in New Jersey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-run facility. He said the plants grown in New Jersey were used in conjunction with a contractor’s plants to establish test plots for quality control.

“If there was any catastrophic plant mortality, the test plots could help us determine if it was a problem with the plants or the site conditions. If the contractor’s plants died, but the government plants lived, it would indicate that it was a problem with the plants and not a problem with the design.”

Wilson added that Bill Skaradek of the Cape May facility will use test plots to look at the performance or different nursery-grown plant containers in these tough growing conditions. One benefit that is already noticeable is that plants with deeper roots may prevent geese from pulling the plants up, minimizing damage.

The success of the Wanchese Harbor Project is a good example of how engineering and biology work together for ecosystem restoration. For Dennis and Wilson it was an opportunity to somewhat cross train to get a better idea of how all the pieces of the project were put together.

“It’s definitely a team effort,” stated Dennis. “We learned a lot from each other. I learned what plant species grew there, and Chuck is learning the engineering side of using riprap; how high to stack them and where to place them.”

The big picture is that this 10-acre USACE project is one small part of an overall plan by various state agencies and private organizations to help protect and preserve North Carolina’s coastal ecosystems. The overall goal, Wilson said, is to help restore the Albemarle/Pamlico Sound National Estuary.

“The State of North Carolina Division of Marine Resources, the Coastal Federation and the Nature Conservancy are building oyster reefs and similar projects in the estuary. All our joint work is a step in the right direction for the state. The Wilmington District has had a lot of experience in coastal restoration. Our oldest project which has been very successful is the Morehead Army Reserve Center, now 12 years old. It’s considered a successful site, as well as Island 13 and Festival Park. The Wilmington District has been fortunate to receive national recognition on all of these sites.”

What motivates Wilson is a simple love of biology and unlocking of various doors that only Mother Nature could open. He’s passionate about his work, and he feels that teamwork motivates others to do excellent work.

“I love what I do. When we’re building these habitats that are functioning it’s a great legacy to be able to leave behind, a place that you can go to. We’re building them from ground up. It’s interesting taking what used to be barren piles of sand and turning them into what are now thriving primary nursery areas. I think we’re making a real contribution to the local environment and to science because pilot projects like Wanchese Harbor are good examples for others to observe.”