Bonner Bridge
Reefs
Oregon Inlet, North Carolina, United States Reducing wave energy for seagrass regeneration. Oregon Inlet is located in Pamlico Sound, the largest lagoon on the east coast and part of the Albemarle-Pamlico sound system, the second largest estuary in the United States. In this area, increased land use and development have in turn increased runoff, resulting in higher concentrations of nutrients, pollutants, and suspended solids in the sound. Overharvesting of oysters and the commercial removal of oyster reefs beginning in the late 1880s exacerbated the poor water quality in the sound, home to 90% of North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry. Therefore, mitigating the ecological impacts of the construction of Bonner Bridge was essential. In 2017, the North Carolina Department of Transportation hired CSA Ocean Sciences to find a mitigation opportunity for 0.52 hectares of affected submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV ), but no locations near the project met the traditional mitigation requirements. Instead, they proposed an alternative mitigation strategy. The team installed a 150-meter wave-attenuating Atlantic Reefmaker structure, providing a wave-energy shadow that allowed the vegetation to grow undisturbed. Now, a dense and vibrant bed of seagrass lies at the bottom of the sound, creating habitat for fish and other aquatic species.
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