Lightning Point

Bayou La Batre, Alabama, United States

Using green and gray infrastructure to revitalize a culturally important shoreline. Bayou La Batre is the Seafood Capital of Alabama and the heart of the Gulf of Mexico seafood and fisheries industry. Lightning Point is where the Bayou La Batre navigation channel and the Mississippi Sound meet. The adjacent public lands and boat basin are used frequently by locals and tourists for recreational boating and fishing from shore. The response and cleanup after the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill in 2010 was staged from there and directly affected this important coastal habitat due to primary water access being available at Lightning Point. The shore on either side at the mouth of the channel has retreated approximately 229 to 305 meters since 1916, the result of daily wave action from boats and severe coastal storms, like one in 2017 when over nine meters were lost. The Nature Conservancy contracted with Moffatt & Nichol to design an innovative project to restore habitats and resources lost to the DWH oil spill in a variety of subtidal, intertidal, and higher elevation scrub-shrub environments. The final plans incorporated elements to promote resiliency and adaptation to the uncertainties of sea level rise and storm-induced erosion along the roughly two-kilometer shoreline. The project included offshore curvilinear segmented breakwaters, tidal creeks, intertidal marsh habitat construction, and the beneficial use of dredged material.

Article Cover: Scrub-shrub habitat, tidal marsh, and tidal creeks, looking west across the East Marsh Creation Area of Lightning Point and overlooking the heterogeneous connection among the breakwaters. (Photo by Moffatt & Nichol)

Producing Efficiencies

Curvilinear breakwaters, the project’s first line of defense, feature overlapping gaps to allow fish to pass and to avoid erosional hot spots. Wave transmission and breakwater crests were calculated under operational and extreme environmental scenarios to assign probability of exceedance percentages to the breakwater design and to ensure waves remained under 15 centimeters to protect the marsh edge. The project’s new tidal creek network is flushing properly, and vegetation and fish are abundant throughout. A long-term maintenance plan and strategies to reuse sediment dredged from the navigation channel were developed to promote resilience and to abate the impacts of sea level rise.

A marsh buggy excavator being used to restore tidal flow to the adjacent 12-hectare north marsh and wetland area, which had been deprived of daily tidal influence over several decades.

(Photo by Gulf Equipment Corporation)

Using Natural Processes

Gray infrastructure and green features reduce coastal hazard risks and sustain coastal protection measures. Over 80,000 plugs of five native plant species have been installed. A vegetated shoreline stabilization feature along the edge of the East Marsh Creation Area has protected an eroding bluff from tropical storm surges exceeding one meter. Reconnecting an old tidal creek through that area brought tidal exchange to intertidal marshes for the first time in 75 years and enhanced 12 hectares of marsh formerly cut off from Mississippi Sound. Overall, almost three kilometers of new creeks ensure sufficient tidal exchange throughout the network.

Hydraulic dredging and material placement to restore the West Marsh Creation Area out to the newly constructed shoreline protection.

(Photo by Moffatt & Nichol)

Broadening Benefits

Bayou La Batre is home to fishing, seafood processing, and shipbuilding. This project’s environmental enhancements have attracted wildlife and boosted demand for recreational access. Many businesses and individuals were harmed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005; this project has helped reconnect them with nature while increasing the resilience of this vibrant, culturally rich community. A fishing platform, viewing pavilion, and walking trail were added to the site in 2021 and 2022. The upcoming City Docks project will include boat slips, updated parking for recreational boaters and anglers, and a market where the public can buy Gulf seafood directly from local fishermen.

Constructing the last remaining breakwaters on the east side of Lightning Point to protect the culturally important oyster cannery in Bayou La Batre.

(Photo by Moffatt & Nichol)

Promoting Collaboration

A charette with the city, Mobile County, State of Alabama, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, and nongovernmental stakeholders collected ideas and lessons from earlier shoreline restoration projects in the region. Consequently, the project team developed this multifaceted and innovative shoreline restoration design, attended city council meetings, produced project signs and fact sheets, met with local stakeholders and residents during design and construction, and updated the estuary program’s Project Implementation Committee at least twice a year. High school students grew and planted supplemental vegetation. Federal and state agencies have toured the completed site and its nature-based features.

Nesting terns (Sternidae) and gulls at the project site immediately after construction. More than 50 bird and wildlife species have been seen at the project site since the completion of construction.

(Photo by Moffatt & Nichol)

Spartina marsh growing successfully after two years of initial planting along the created tidal creeks and after two seasons of hurricanes and coastal storms.

(Photo by The Nature Conservancy)