Politics & Government

$59K Grant Funds Model "Living Shoreline" Installation of Reef Balls

The living shoreline is a model project for coastal towns to protect against erosion and restore habitat. Next step: CT Audubon and Sacred Heart will install 40 permeable concrete "Reef balls," dome-like concrete structures of various sizes.

Written by Leslie Yager

Last month 23 Long Island Sound Futures Fund grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Association were presented at an upbeat event Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk. 

"We've gone from degradation of Long Island Sound to restoration," said Curt Spalding of the US Environmental Protection Agency during the event.

One of the grants was awarded to an ongoing collaboration between CT Audubon Society and  Sacred Heart University at Stratford Point.

In February 2012, the collaborative team oversaw a planned burn of Stratford Point by the fire department with the goal of killing invasive plant species down to their roots. 

A few months later, in May 2012, the team returned to the Point to plant native plants.

The Long Island Futures Fund grant of $59,000 will move along the Stratford Point Project, with its overall goal of improving critical bird and wildlife habitat and protect the state’s coastline from storms like Hurricane Sandy.

The project seeks to create a "living shoreline" which includes the construction of a reef consisting of 40 permeable concrete reef balls—a technology never before used in Long Island Sound—along with the restoration of a salt marsh behind the reef. The project will be constructed in roughly 3.5 acres of intertidal zone at the 40-acre coastal estuary restoration site at Stratford Point, which is managed by Connecticut Audubon Society (CAS).

The living shoreline project may provide a model for use by other coastal communities with an eye to protection against hurricanes and storms, and for preventing erosion and other impacts of sea level rise.

The project works by slowing down and breaking up waves and storm surges that cause erosion. The project allows for sediment deposits to accumulate and for protective tidal marsh plants to take root.

The project also provides habitat that acts as a fish and blue crab nursery and a setting for shellfish. In turn, habitat is provided for Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Black-crowned Night-Herons and other birds.

Living shorelines function in contrast to seawalls, rip-rap walls, bulkheads and other armoring structures which, according to the release come at the expense of natural habitat, tend to harden and destabilize the shoreline, cause loss of beachfront and sever the biological link between the land and sea. Living shorelines use natural features, such as dunes, reefs and marshes, to protect fragile coastal features as well as shoreline property. 

Concrete Reef Balls

Using the NFWF grant, Sacred Heart and Connecticut Audubon staff and volunteers will install 40 reef balls in Stratford Point’s north cove in March or April 2014 

“Once the reef and marsh are installed, the public is welcome to come and see how the reef is working,” said Jennifer Mattei, director of the environmental science and management graduate program at SHU, in a joint release from CT Audubon and SHU.

The reef balls are dome-like concrete structures of various sizes. According to the joint release, at Stratford Point the reef balls will range from two feet tall with a three-foot diameter base to nine inches tall with a 17-inch diameter base. Each reef ball—manufactured by the non-profit Reef Ball Foundation—has Swiss-cheese-like holes to allow water, tides, sediments and marine life to move in and out.

At Stratford Point, four sizes of reef balls will be installed in four rows of 10. To add stability to the area, a 60-foot-long biodegradable sock, filled with the shells of bivalves, will be snaked through the middle two rows of reef balls.

The reef balls allow sand and sediment to settle near the shore, creating habitat for tidal marsh grasses, which themselves provide habitat for estuarine animals and added protection for the shore, according to the release. The reef balls become habitat for fish and lobsters. Surveys in New Jersey found 14 species of fish, as well as American lobsters, inhabiting a reef ball area.

Stratford Point is owned by Sporting Goods Properties, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the DuPont Company. The site is protected by a conservation easement held by the state and managed by the Connecticut Audubon Society.

For much of the 20th century, it was the site of the Remington Gun Club. About a decade ago, DuPont completed a large remediation project to remove lead shot that had been left over the decades.

The living shoreline will help protect the dune area, and DuPont, Sacred Heart and Connecticut Audubon Society plan to rebuild the dune next year.


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