MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. — Activity on the Dauphin Island Causeway Shoreline Restoration Project began this week to maintain the access channels and degrade dredged material berms built last fall.

The access channels were created at the beginning of the Dauphin Island Shoreline Restoration Project construction so barges could be brought into position to build the rock breakwaters along approx. 3.5 miles of the Dauphin Island Causeway (SR 193) between Mobile County’s Bayfront Park and Cedar Point. Access channels from deeper water will continue to be used in later project phases.

This work is in preparation for the next phase of the Dauphin Island Causeway Shoreline Restoration Project, during which the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will place material dredged from the Choctaw Turning Basin behind the recently constructed rock breakwaters to create a marsh platform. This is approved and permitted beneficial use of dredge material, which will restore marshland in Mobile County with sediment from Mobile County.

The Dauphin Island Causeway Shoreline Restoration Project will restore the shoreline to 1917 locations, protect Dauphin Island’s only access road from storm impacts and erosion, and it will protect nearly 300 acres of healthy, productive salt marsh habitat to the west side of the Dauphin Island Causeway upon which many of the state’s commercially and recreationally significant fish, shellfish and native bird populations rely.

This project is funded by grants from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund and the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund with the goals of protecting infrastructure and creating habitat injured by the Deepwater Horizon oil Spill, respectively.  No matching funds are required from the Mobile County Commission.