Seagrass Enhancement Project in North Carolina Underway
Contracted by the State of North Carolina Department of Transportation(NCDOT), CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. (CSA) is conducting a novel seagrass enhancement project by manipulating wind wave energy to provide new and sustained seagrass acreage in anticipation of unavoidable impacts, creating essentially an open-water “living shoreline,” although in the absence of an actual shore. The Bonner Bridge, which connects Hatteras and Bodie islands at the Oregon Inlet—a lifeline for tourism and tropical storm evacuation of the North Carolina outer banks—has reached its engineering limits and is being replaced. The potential seagrass impact estimated from the new bridge installation required the recovery of no less than 1.28 acres of highly productive seagrasses, interspersed with widgeon grass. In January, Cape Dredging Company, under contract to CSA, completed installation of the Reefmaker wave attenuation units in coordination with the manufacturer, Atlantic Reefmaker.
CSA Ocean Sciences Inc. (CSA) senior scientist David Snyder and George Burgess, coordinator of museum operations and the director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida’s Florida Museum of Natural History, have authored the most comprehensive book about Florida’s marine fishes ever produced. Titled Marine Fishes of Florida, it includes hundreds of photographs and species you’ll encounter—plus many that are rare—when diving, snorkeling, kayaking, or fishing. Coverage includes both the Atlantic and Gulf coastline, from habitats near the shore to deeper waters. Fishes found in coastal rivers and other brackish waters are fully represented as are offshore species that venture into Florida’s waters often enough to be called “occasional visitors.”