Last of three parts

WILMINGTON – Oh, the mighty oyster.

They filter and clean our waters, play an important role in our economy by providing food and jobs, build reefs that help prevent erosion and provide habitat for hundreds of marine species.

Yet, oyster populations are at historic lows, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, Fisheries.

The loss of wetlands, pollution, erosion from development, outdated harvest methods and overfishing have resulted in the great oyster population decline.

“As oysters decline in health and numbers, their remarkable ability to filter water is diminished, resulting in poorer water quality,” according to NOAA Fisheries. “The cycle is difficult to reverse.”

That’s why the next of the four goals identified in the collaborative planning effort led by the North Carolina Coastal Federation known as the Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint “is a complex and ambitious” one.

The Third Goal: Oysters

There are signs that the oyster population can be revived in the lower Cape Fear River.

Vast oyster reefs that once thrived in the lower river are either no longer existent or buried under mud, but “there remain viable pockets of oyster reefs supported by an abundance of oyster larvae each year,” the blueprint notes.

Shellfish harvest is open from the area of the Fort Fisher Basin to the river’s mouth.

“While many challenges remain, these factors indicate the potential for a revitalized oyster population and fishery in the lower river is great,” according to the blueprint.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has for the past 15 years worked with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, or DMF, and other partners to restore oyster populations in the state.

Based on evidence that a million oysters are restored for every acre of oyster sanctuary created, the federation has been aiding DMF to restore at least 50 acres of oyster reefs coastwide by 2020.

That number of oysters will filter an estimated 2.5 trillion gallons of water each day, according to the plan.

A focus area for oyster restoration sites, reef sanctuaries and cultch planting areas in the lower river extends from Snows Cut down to Bald Head Island.

The Fourth Goal: Managing Invasive Species

The non-native, invasive plant species phragmites australis, or the common reed, grows as high as 10 to 12 feet tall, choking out native habitats. This aggressively spreading plant is hard to destroy and it’s growing in the lower Cape Fear River.

Under the blueprint, existing populations of phragmites and migration patterns would be identified through research conducted by the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The next step is to study effective ways to manage and eradicate the invasive plant species and examine current scientific research on the possible negative effects on the ecosystem and human health from pesticides used to kill the plant.

Based on that research, the federation and researchers will set up a plan to manage phragmites in a way that is safe to the ecosystem and human health.

Funding will then be sought to initiate a pilot program to manage the invasive species. That program, if successful, would then be expanded to the rest of the lower river region.

Upstream benefits

Though the goals mapped out in the blueprint pertain specifically to the lower river, the work implemented as a result of that document will have impacts upstream.

“I’m encouraged by the Coastal Federation’s desire to focus a lot of their resources on the lower Cape Fear,” said Dawn York, Cape Fear River Partnership coordinator. “I think it’s a motivating factor. The work the Coastal Federation is doing and has been doing is like a platform to leverage all the effort that the Cape Fear Partnership and all the partners within the partnership has been working on.”

One major initiative of the partnership is the installation of fish passages at the Cape Fear River’s lock and dams.

These manmade rapids allow migratory fish such as American shad, river herring, striped bass and Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon to travel upstream to spawn.

The first of these passages that allow anadromous, or inland-spawning fish, to swim over during their voyage upstream, was completed in 2012 at Lock and Dam No. 1 near Riegelwood.

The partnership, a coalition of public and private groups, is pulling together funds to design and start building similar fish passages at Lock and Dams No. 2 at Elizabethtown and No. 3, just below Fayetteville.

The lower estuary is primary nursery area for ocean-living anadromous fish including river herring and shad so enhancing and protecting the quality of water in that portion of the river will only aid in efforts to increase migratory fish populations, York said.

Building up eroded shorelines will help protect primary nursery areas habitat, which, in turn, will also be beneficial to the ecosystem that supports migratory fish. Oyster reefs provide habitat to commercial juvenile fish, forage fish, and other marine life such as blue crabs and shrimp.

“(The blueprint goals) all have fairly big impacts,” York said. “It’s not just from a drinking water perspective. It’s help to bring fisheries back to the region, to open up oyster harvest. I hope to be a part of making it successful and supporting the Coastal Federation and doing what the partnership can to bring it all together.”

Second in a series on the Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint

WILMINGTON – More people, more development, more frequent and intense storms, and localized sea level risk – these are the pressures facing the lower Cape Fear River.

The river’s surrounding watersheds span more than 9,000 square miles and encompass more than 6,600 miles of streams and tributaries.

To address head-on these issues that threaten the river’s vulnerable natural resources, the Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint, a collaborative planning effort being led by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, identifies four goals and strategies. Those goals include: protecting and restoring water quality; implementing living shorelines along the river’s banks; boosting oyster habitat; and protecting native coastal wetlands free of invasive species.

The First Goal: Water Quality

About $100 million to $120 million is spent each year in the Cape Fear River basin on fishing, hunting, boating and other natural resource related activities, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The North Carolina Division of Water Quality, or DWR, classifies all surface waters in the state.

A majority of the lower Cape Fear estuary is classified as SC, or waters identified as tidal salt waters for secondary recreational activities like fishing and boating where skin contact with the water is minimal.

Class SC is the least stringent water quality designation.

One of the objectives in the blueprint is to get the state to reclassify the waters between Carolina Beach State Park and Bald Head Island to SB, a designation that would make the waters primary recreation and provide the river an additional level of protection.

The process of getting that reclassification would entail petitioning the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission, or EMC, to a study how the river is primarily used. If the EMC rules to move forward with the request, the decision then goes to the North Carolina Rules Review Commission.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ultimately determines whether to approve the reclassification request.

Meanwhile, work could get underway to develop watershed restoration plans that call for reducing the amount of stormwater runoff flowing into the river.

The federation studied eight watersheds spanning more than 30,000 acres in Brunswick and New Hanover counties and determined that the current volume of runoff during storms can be reduced to levels recorded in 1993, according to the blueprint.

More than 600 sites have been identified as potential locations to reduce stormwater runoff throughout the lower Cape Fear River.

Runoff may also be reduced through wetlands restoration.

The federation has evaluated potential wetlands restoration sites to help restore and enhance the river’s water quality.

A study is underway to identify a list of restoration project sites with work in those areas to begin next year, according to the blueprint.

The Second Goal: Living Shorelines

The largest living shoreline project in North Carolina is underway along the banks of the Brunswick Town/Fort Anderson State Historic Site, a pre-Revolutionary port roughly halfway between downtown Wilmington and the mouth of the Cape Fear River.

The multi-million-dollar shoreline protection project combines the protection of reefmakers with the construction of a living shoreline.

As storms, changing tides and the brunt of waves created in the wake of shipping traffic ripped chunks of the historic shoreline away, fort officials decided to pursue a more natural way to combat erosion.

A major initiative of the federation is the education and implementation of living shorelines as an alternative to bulkheads, which can destroy wetlands and other habitat for marine life.

Living shoreline projects are built with various structural and organic materials, such as plants, submerged aquatic vegetation, oyster shells and stone. These projects generally work best along sheltered coasts such as estuaries, bays, lagoons and coastal deltas, where wave energy is low to moderate.

Mounting research shows that living shorelines hold up better through storms than hardened structures, enhance intertidal habitat for fish and other marine resources, and better defend against sea level rise.

In early 2017, the Army Corps of Engineers authorized its first nationwide permit for living shorelines, a move that solidified on a national level the value of living shorelines and helps streamline the permitting process.

Nationwide Permit 54, which became effective in March 2017, addresses the construction and maintenance of living shoreline projects.

The federation and researchers with the University of North Carolina Wilmington have identified areas of estuary shorelines in the lower Cape Fear River particularly vulnerable to erosion from commercial shipping traffic and effects from sea level rise.

That study revealed that Brunswick County’s shorelines along the river have suffered more erosion that New Hanover County’s river shores.

The federation is taking the results of that study to identify shoreline areas at the most risk for erosion.

The blueprint calls for pinpointing at least 10 potential living shoreline project sites within those areas and initiating funding and construction for those projects next year.

Next: Oysters and Invasive Species

First in a series on the Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint

WILMINGTON – Long before GenX became a household name synonymous with danger lurking in the waters of the Cape Fear River, pollution from development, shipping and industry degraded the river’s quality and natural habitat.

Now, an ambitious, long-range plan called the “Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint” sets out to restore and protect the river’s coastal area, nearly 35 miles stretching from downtown Wilmington to the Atlantic Ocean.

The recently debuted blueprint pinpoints a specific set of goals and maps out how to tackle each goal in an effort to enhance and preserve the lower portion of the 202-mile-long river.

The blueprint, a culmination of about two years of work spearhead by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, is already being hailed as a beacon for educating an array of audiences from nonprofits, government bodies, various industries and private residents.

Bringing in those groups will only bolster the ongoing efforts of groups like the Cape Fear River Partnership, a coalition of federal, state, local and academic organizations working to restore migratory fish stock in the river.

“The partnership, we realize that we’re not working in a bubble,” said Dawn York, the partnership’s coordinator. “There’s so much going on as a river basin. The work the Coastal Federation is doing and has been doing is like a platform to leverage all the effort that the Cape Fear Partnership and all the partners within the partnership have been working on. What they’re going to be doing is engaging stakeholders that may not be familiar with what the critical needs are for the river and the habitat. That, for me, is huge. The blueprint is just one small piece of a very large puzzle, but it’s a significant piece that is moving us forward.”

The blueprint, heavily laden with research conducted by the University of North Carolina Wilmington, evolved in the wake of the victory against Titan America, a cement manufacturer that wanted to operate a plant off the river bank in Castle Hayne.

During the nearly decade-long fight to keep Titan from opening a plant in New Hanover County, the federation, working hand-in-hand with community activists, grassroots organizations and other environmental nonprofits, recognized the power of collaboration, said Tracy Skrabal, coastal scientist and the federation’s Southeast Regional Office manager.

“This blueprint, if you hold it up to you, you should hear it breathe,” Skrabal said during the May 22 launch of the blueprint at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science. “It’s meant to be collaborative.”

The blueprint is designed to be a web-based interactive resource that lays out an action plan, links to resources and provides full access to studies highlighted in the document.

A River of Issues

The lower estuary experienced drastic changes going back to the 18th century, when settlers cleared, drained and diked freshwater swamps for rice production and land development.

So-called unsustainable development practices, such as clear-cutting forests and draining wetlands to make way for intense urban development, have marred natural habitats.

The lock and dam systems created to facilitate commercial shipping traffic up and down the river and provide water supply systems for the region also obstruct migratory fish routes.

A steady increase in shipping traffic and larger vessels traveling through the channel to the port of Wilmington have caused substantial shoreline erosion along the lower river.

Sea level rise and more frequent and increasingly intense hurricanes only exacerbate shoreline erosion.

Compounding the problems affecting the lower Cape Fear River is a threat only recently identified – drinking water contaminants, including GenX, a chemical compound that has, for years, been released into the river.

The presence of GenX was discovered in the river basin just last year.

That discovery has launched research efforts to identify everything from the chemical’s presence in the ground and air, to its possible effects on humans and ways to identify other perfluorinated compounds.

The GenX issue is heightening awareness about the importance of restoration, enhancement and protective measures within the river basin, York said.

“I feel like we’re just sort of at a tipping point,” she said. “I just hope to be a part of making [the blueprint] successful and supporting the Coastal Federation and doing what the partnership can to bring it all together.”

Reeling in various stakeholders – the general public, regulatory agencies and local governments – to work together to put the blueprint into action will help protect a river that is not only economically important for the area, but a source of drinking water for thousands.

The North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries estimated in 2014 that the lower Cape Fear River supported more than 450 jobs, $14.2 million in income and $35.7 million in business sales.

About 20 percent of North Carolina’s population lives within the Cape Fear River basin.

Currently, residents within the region and more than 1.6 million people upstream depend on the river for drinking water.

The drinking water demand is expected to increase as population projection estimate more than 500,000 additional residents to the region in the next 25 years.

Learn More

• Lower Cape Fear River Blueprint

Next in the series: Goals and strategies