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NOAA Crew Celebrates National Volunteer Week
By Protecting Maryland Marshland
Photos courtesy of NOAA Restoration Center
NOAA management and staff and Maryland Congressional members and state
legislators recently donned boots to plant marsh grass during National
Volunteer Week. The aim is to help protect a wetland area on Maryland’s
Eastern Shore.
Timothy R.E. Keeney, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for oceans
and atmosphere, and Bill Hogarth, director of NOAA’s National Marine
Fisheries Service, led a 15-member NOAA crew and several dozen other
volunteers from national and local area organizations. The group helped
plant a total of 65,000 cordgrass plants to thwart erosion in a four-
acre tidal wetland on the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge.
Senator Barbara Mikulski and Reps. Wayne Gilchrest and Robert Erlich
joined event participants from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers, Friends of the Eastern Neck National Wildlife
Refuge, the Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, Chesapeake Bay Trust, and the Shared Earth Foundation to
help in the effort.
During the event, Bill Hogarth officially awarded the National Aquarium
in Baltimore a $40,000 Chesapeake Bay Small Watersheds grant. The project
was coordinated by the National Aquarium in Baltimore and addressed
the long-term problem of erosion in the refuge. The four-acre marsh
was created by the Army Corps of Engineers from 26,000 cubic yards of
dredged material. Its construction provided a cost-effective and environmentally
sound solution to the island erosion problem and placement of clean
dredge material. However, the material placed to create the marsh is
eroding at a rapid rate.
The Friends of Eastern Neck, a volunteer group dedicated to the support
of Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge and restoration of estuarine
habitats in the Chesapeake Bay, will perform long-term maintenance ofthe
site. Friends of Eastern Neck and members of the Aquarium’s Conservation
Team (ACT!) plan to hold education and demonstration sessions on planting
techniques and site restoration and monitoring.
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland
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