Conservation
Wetlands Restoration
Sportsman Road Shoreline Protection Project
The Galveston Bay Foundation and its project partners have completed the first phase of the Sportsman Road Shoreline Protection Project. The whole project will protect approximately 3,000 feet of marsh shoreline that lies at the end of Sportsman Road on Galveston Island. The shoreline, which currently protects a three hundred acre marsh complex that lies directly behind it, was eroding at a rate of approximately four feet per year. At that rate of erosion, the marsh shoreline would have disappeared within years, opening up the entire three hundred acre marsh complex to the same erosional forces currently impacting the north shoreline.
The breakwater was constructed using patented hollow concrete dome-like structures called reef balls (see the picture above). The reef balls have a width of two feet and a height of eighteen inches. Their hollow design provides habitat for fish and oysters. Over the months of May and June over 150 volunteers, primarily consisting of the Seaborne ChallNGe Corps, CCA Galveston and Mainland Chapter members, and Sportsman Road homeowners, placed 790 reef balls along the shoreline. These volunteers successfully protected 1,560 feet of shoreline through the placement of the reef domes. There is approximately 1,445 feet of shoreline that remains to be protected. GBF will continue to seek funding opportunities to protect the remaining shoreline. In the short time the breakwater has been complete, GBF staff members have witnessed juvenile shrimp, blue crabs, and hermit crabs living in the breakwater.
Project partners for the Sportsman Road Project include: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Coastal Program, Restore America's Estuaries, NOAA Restoration Center, USDA National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), NRG Texas, USFWS Ecological Services, Coastal Conservation Association, ConocoPhillips, and the Sportsman Road Homeowners Association. GBF was especially pleased to partner with the Coastal Conservation Association for the first time on a restoration project.
