Baldwin County projects among work funded by $47 million state environmental grants

By GUY BUSBY
Government Editor
guy@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 12/7/22

FOLEY — State environmental grants for the Alabama Gulf Coast will help improve waterways in several areas of Baldwin County, local officials said.In November, Gov. Kay Ivey announced the …

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Baldwin County projects among work funded by $47 million state environmental grants

Posted

FOLEY — State environmental grants for the Alabama Gulf Coast will help improve waterways in several areas of Baldwin County, local officials said.

In November, Gov. Kay Ivey announced the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation approved $47 million for five projects on the Alabama Coast.

The projects include about $9 million for the second phase of watershed restoration on lower Fish River and $2.8 million for the second phase of headwaters restoration on Wolf and Sandy creeks near Foley.

Foley City Administrator Mike Thompson said the $2.8 million-grant will help the city continue efforts to restore the creeks.

“It's going to address some of our creeks on the east side of town, particularly Wolf Bay Creek in two places there's going to be some work done on the west side of Foley Beach Express between Pride Drive and the Foley Beach Express,” Thompson said. “That area is going to be cleaned up and on the east side of Foley Beach Express north of County Road 20, there's going to be a restoration project there as well.”

Foley Mayor Ralph Hellmich said the Wolf Creek project will help improve the waterway that has been degraded in recent years.

“It will be just downstream from our sports tourism field, north of OWA and feeds into Wolf Creek and it has a lot of invasives and has a lot of sedimentation issues there,” Hellmich said.

The mayor said the city will also be working with Elberta on the Sandy Creek project.

“The other one is really a partnership with Elberta,” Hellmich said. “We had the resources to go after it, but it benefits Elberta. It's in the area, but it also feeds into Wolf Bay, which we're primarily concerned with.”

Hellmich the grant is the last round of funding expected from NFWF using money received as a result of fines and penalties from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“We used $7 million grant over a three-year process over on the Bon Secour purchased the property to create the 80-acre wetland detention area that will help clean the waters up,” he said.

The Lower Fish River watershed project will improve several tributaries of the river that have been affected by erosion, silt and nutrient pollution. The impacts have damaged the seagrass beds and oyster reef habitats downstream as well as affecting the environment in Fish River, according to statements by the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, which is overseeing that project.

The largest of the five projects announced by Ivey is the second phase of beach restoration on the east end of Dauphin Island in Mobile County. That project will receive $26 million, according to a statement from the Governor’s Office.

“As we celebrate Alabama’s 2022 slate of NFWF projects and announce the final allocation of Alabama’s portion of the Gulf Environmental Benefit Funds, we recognize another landmark in Alabama’s recovery from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill disaster,” Ivey said in the statement. “The $356 million dollars awarded to Alabama in criminal fines, managed by NFWF, funded some of the first Deepwater Horizon Restoration Projects implemented in Coastal Alabama.”

In the last 10 years, NFWF’s funding has paid for projects to improve the long-term sustainability of coastal resources in Alabama, according to foundation statements.

The projects have paid to acquire, conserve or restore about 9,000 acres of habitat and protect about 11 miles of shoreline. The work has also improved water quality through three miles of stream restoration that will avoid 50 million to 70 million pounds of sediment annually, according to NFWF.

Other projects have installed more than 250 acres of artificial reef habitat and thousands of artificial reefs to enhance fish productivity and restore more than 800 acres of oyster reef habitat, the reports said.