Center For The Inland Bays

Restoration Projects

Anchorage Canal Drainage Area Stormwater Retrofitting
--- Center for the Inland Bays Coordinating Retrofit Strategy with Local Communities ---

Stormwater running off our streets, parking lots and driveways is carrying a cargo of toxic chemicals, fertilizers, pet waste, and litter into the Inland Bays. Cleaning up pollution emanating from stormwater runoff is essential to improving the water quality and living resources in the Bays.

Along the coastal corridor from Rehoboth to Fenwick, runoff from impervious surfaces flows untreated and unfiltered into the Bays because most of the land was developed before controls were required. Nutrients, bacteria, and oils enter waters where they can harm aquatic life and people.

The Center for the Inland Bays is working with communities to meet its goal of treating 4,500 acres of this type of development through a process called stormwater retrofitting.

Click Here to Download First Draft of Strategy for Project Parterns

Sloughs Gut Marsh Enhancement Project
Since the late 1990s, the Center for the Inland Bays has utilized the James Farm Ecological Preserve for a variety of projects including reforestation, a warm-season native grass meadow, non-tidal wetland creation, a wildlife observation blind, eel grass restoration, oyster reef creation, and hard clam stock enhancement. Other projects have included nature trails, boardwalks, observation platforms, and interpretive signage.

Located on the east side of the James Farm Ecological Preserve, this project will involve the enhancement of 24 acres of a saltmarsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) marsh that was ditched for mosquito control purposes back in the late 1930s.

After thorough review, it was determined that the existing marsh lacks a diversity of
habitat types normally found in the Inland Bays and would benefit from enhancement. The goal is to restore a more natural flow of water into and over the marsh and to enhance the habitat by use of meandering creeks and pools.

The Center assisted in collecting baseline data on tide and groundwater levels, plants, as well as recorded data on birds and fish that utilize the existing marsh. This was done prior to the
enhancement project and will be used to help determine the success of the project.

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions

CIB builds steel 'eelway' at Betts Pond dam to help migration effort
December 15, 2008

By Molly Murray, News Journal

The first choke point for American eels on their 1,000-mile journey from the Sargasso Sea into Indian River Inlet and then to fresh water comes at Millsboro Dam -- a giant wall of concrete.

Some of the tiny elvers -- clear, 6-inch-long spaghetti-like strands with big, black eyes -- make it over the dam and into Millsboro Pond, using chinks in the concrete as grab-points in the climb.

But as they swim further upstream, there is a second wall of cement -- the 8-foot-high dam at Betts Pond.

"We don't know if any are making it or not" there, said Eric Buehl, habitat coordinator with the Center for the Inland Bays. In limited monitoring, center scientists found no signs of eels in Betts Pond, he said.

So the center, working with the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, came up with a plan. They built and installed a custom "eelway" for the 230-year-old dam. The new eelway is made of steel. It looks a little like the storm gutters on a house -- only more square than round -- and it includes little bumpy pegs that eels can use to help them in their climb. A solar panel provides the energy to operate a small pump that keeps the eelway wet.

"It keeps them from drying out," Buehl said. "One reason we wanted to get them over the dam is so they can spread out over other water bodies, thus reducing disease, overcrowding and increasing food sources for other species."

The conservation service provided a $1,500 grant for construction and installation of the eelway -- 75 percent of the total cost. Sally Kepfer, state resource conservationist with the NRCS, said the agency often provides money to enhance habitat, especially habitat for rare and declining species.

The new eelway is the second installed in the chain of manmade ponds along the Indian River -- Millsboro, Betts, Ingram -- and the headwater streams of the river.

Shellfish Gardening Program
The Center's Shellfish Gardening Project is now a demonstration, but with an eye toward becoming a restoration project. The Center provides juvenile oysters and clams, and apparatus to raise them, to citizens with waterfront properties. If successful, the program may help restore shellfish to areas where they have been depleted.

Oyster Gardening in the Inland Bays 2008
Oyster Gardening Location Map

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Slough's Gut at the James Farm Ecological Preserve

A newly-constructed creek meanders through the marsh. This will help re-establish a more natural flow of water and increase feeding areas for wading birds.

Eelway Installed at Betts Pond

CIB Volunteer, Bob Collins, with staffers, Eric Buehl and E.J. Chalabala install the eelway

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