Deadmans Island Restoration

Spring is coming! 2010 will be a busy year for the City of Gulf Breeze’s Deadman’s Island Restoration Project and schools and volunteers are needed!

Please call if you have any contacts for students (middle school to high school) and volunteers for the upcoming months :

March- help place fossilized and recycled oyster shells in oyster molds for the new structures

April- planting all sorts of vegetation from Mean high water to Dune plants

Summer- snorkelers and certified divers to help count fish, oysters, hermit crabs,oyster drills etc- they will learn important scientific monitoring techniques

I am building hurricane tolerant bird habitats- still in design- but I need people who are familar with birds and bird habitat whom can help with the best design for the types of birds encountered on Deadman’s Island. Deadman’s Island is considered a migratory drop zone for birds.

Please call Heather Reed at 346-2073

2010 Powerpoint Project Update is now available for download (about 7 Meg).

Westin DeMotts headed up a rather large Eagle Scout project focusing on erosion control or the shoreline of Deadman’s Island.  Due to the Ida storm his project had to be modified to reflect the current erosion.  Westin and his team placed bio-mesh to catch sand and build up about 500 linear feet of shoreline.  after the placement on Saturday, the following Monday the area collected sand in the places it was needed most to build up the isthmus.

Also the group also worked to secure a root system Ida had exposed.  The group used geo-fabric and boi-mesh to secure the area and allow further sand accumulation for a later planting project.

Thanks Westin!

Scouts and volunteers who attended.

• Nick Musmanksky
• Morgan Armstrong
• Matthew Kenworthy
• Kyle Dunning
• Christopher Brandon
• Tyler Fisher
• Jack Joyner
• Richard Burns
• Nick Flores
• Jack Tamburro
• Anne Marie Tamburro
• Mallory DeMotts
• Peter Hahn
• Eric Larsen
• Ryan Henderson
• Paxton Lyons
• Dan Flores
• Bruce DeMotts

The temperatures change each year and cause a spawning for the area Bay’s oysters. The breakwaters were placed just in time for this spawning. Within one week of deployment, barnacles were settling on the rebar and oysters shell. Today, I notice millions of oyster spat (>1/4″) were attached to the recycled oyster shell and fossilized oyster shell!

Education Tidbit!

The Eastern Oyster “juvenile” in the water column after fertilization is called trochophore larvae then goes into the water colunm which then it is called a veliger once the veliger places a “foot” on the settlement substrate it is called a pediveliger.  Once the pediveliger has settled it is called oyster spat.  What you see on docks and other areas after a spawn is called spat.  Two weeks later, it’s called an oyster!

I keep getting calls about how to continue to help out at Deadman’s Island. If you are snorkeling near the reef and see fish- please note the date, number tag on the structure found, number and type of fish (if known) and email to me at hreed@ecoconsultingservices.com. This is important data in which I can add to the current monitoring data. I can never have enough. Please contact me if you are interested in scheduling fish count days. 

Great job everyone for helping to create this reef structure to help protect Deadman’s Island!  The reef is doing it’s anticipated job of blocking the destructive underwater current.  This current has caused significant erosion to the north end of Deadman’s Island destroying 100 year sand oak trees and causing them to topple into the water.     ~Heather Reed

Pictures

Saturday August 29, 2009 22 divers and snorkelers showed up bright and early to help anchor the newly placed oyster structures at Deadman’s Island.  There is a total of 156 structures and all outside anchors were placed and 10 inside anchors were placed.  We have 146 more inside anchors to go!    If you would like to volunteer to place these anchors please call Project Manager, Heather Reed at 346-2073.  Diving can be during the week or on the weekend  depending on boat availabilty. Look forward to seeing you there!

Structures designed by Coastal Environments Inc, built by Georgestone Technical School and Escambia County Road Prison, placed by Coastal Reef builders, managed by Ecological Consulting Services Inc and propelled by volunteers and residents are now being set in place and not too early either. Deadman’s Island had faced even more erosion just this past month. Partial structures are in place and has slowed down the current that has been eating away at the north end of Deadman’s Island. Next summer a final structures will be placed to protect the west end.   This reef will not only add protection to Deadman’s Island but provide great fishing and snorkeling for the general public.  Thank you to all our partners and supporters.

Pictures

http://www.pnj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Avis=DP&Dato=20090820&Kategori=NEWS01&Lopenr=908200806&Ref=PH

Deadmans Island Project Brochure (PDF) available here

The deployment of the 159 structures will commence Monday or Tuesday of this week depending on tides and barge operations. The points have been set by Empire Land Surveying and Ecological Consulting Services will be in action this weekend in preparation for the deployment. Please call Heather Reed 346-2073 if you would like to volunteer on Wednesday August 19th. Volunteers are needed for number tagging the reefs for future monitoring and placing temporary PVC pipes on the footprint of the structure area for better deployment. The deployment, willing and good weather,will be completed in a week. Deployment will be provided by Coastal Reef Builders and Dale’s Marine will donate the use of additional temporary turbidity curtains.

Good Morning!

On Wednesday August 12th, 17 volunteers donated their time and labor to filling oyster bags for the reef structures being placed at The City of Gulf Breeze Deadman’s Island this week. Our partners and stewards such as FLDEP Coastal Aquatic Managed Areas, Gulf Power, Emerald Coastkeepers, The Nature Conservancy, local fisherman, students and supportive residents gave a helping hand to help save Deadman’s Island from further erosion.   The day was extremely hot and hardly any wind but that did not deter these hard wrokers from helping to achieve the the goal of filling 156 structures.  A total of 30 structures were filled that day.

These structures will be placed aproximately 240′ away from the shoreline of Deadman’s Island underwater to slow down the wave action and to allow the island to slowly stabilize and prevent historic structures, unmarked cemetaries, 100 year old Marine Oak and the 10,000 year old salt marsh from being destroyed.  These volunteers understand the importance of preserving a rare jewel found no where else in the US.  This project will allow grand kids and great grandkids to enjoy the beauty and uniqueness Deadman’s Island has given their parents, grand parent, great parent and great grandparent and visitors in the past.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation shell habitat grant, US Fish and Wildlife and the Five Star grant (Southern Company, NFWF, NaCO, EPA, and the Wildlife Habitat Council) has given the funding needed to achieve progress with our oyster breakwater structures. The NFWF grant  provided the lunch of Subway sandwiches, water and Gatorade to our hardworking volunteers who by the way did not stop at 12pm they kept on working. 

Georgestone Technical School and Escambia County Road Prison, as part of the Trade program, welded these structures and did an amazing job!  Materials for the structures and design of a majority of the structures were provided by Coastal Environments Inc.   

Thank you to all our supporters! A special thanks to the City of Gulf Breeze Personnel, Therran Gentry and his crew and Ric Moore for diligently working above and beyond duty to get these structures deployed by next week’s high tide.  Please see the great article showing our volunteers from Sean Dugas of the Pensacola News Journal.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20090812/NEWS01/90812013&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

Heather Reed, Project Manager, Ecological Consulting Services Inc.

Good Morning everyone! Needed! Volunteers, volunteers, volunteers!

Volunteers needed!  Wednesday August 12^th,8am-12pm,Please call project manager Heather Reed 850-346-2073 to sign up. Bring your gloves, shovel, 5 gal bucket, hat and sunscreen! Hope to see you there!

1116 Coronado Dr

Gulf Breeze Florida  32563

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1c=Gulf+Breeze&1s=FL&1z=32562&2c=Gulf+Breeze&2s=FL&2a=%5B800-1016%5D+Coronado+Dr&2z=32563&2y=US&2l=30.3718&2g=-87.11205&2v=STREET#a/maps/l:::Gulf+Breeze:FL:32562:US:30.3655:-87.1701:zip:Santa+Rosa+County:1/l::Coronado+Dr:Gulf+Breeze:FL::US:30.376546:-87.111999:::1/m:::::0:::::1:1:1::/io:1:::::f:EN:M:/e

Heather Reed will be giving a presentation about the Deadman’s Island Restoration Project at the Bay Area Resource Council on Wednesday at 1:30 pm at the Gulf Breeze City Hall.