Galveston Bay Foundation receives $2.3 million grant to restore marsh along Galveston Bay

(HOUSTON, TX – April 25, 2019) – This week, Galveston Bay Foundation received a $2.3 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) award to continue to restore and create marsh habitat in the Dollar Bay/Moses Lake complex in Galveston Bay. The funding comes to Galveston Bay Foundation through the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, a funding source created from Deepwater Horizon oil spill penalties. This funding builds upon years of tried and developed techniques for marsh protection and restoration within the same project area including a 1,600-foot section of rock breakwater structures constructed in 2002, a 2,400-foot section constructed in 2012, and 1.3-mile section completed in 2018. Following these projects, Galveston Bay Foundation volunteers planted smooth cordgrass to reestablish fringing marsh and will continue to do so in this next phase. The newly-funded project phase will complete the coastal habitat restoration initiated under the previously funded phases and leverage $1 million recently awarded under NFWF’s National Coastal Resilience Fund, for a total investment of more than $5.7 million. Through the new phase, Galveston Bay Foundation will construct breakwaters to protect and restore estuarine emergent marsh along 1,500 feet of shoreline and 47 newly created marsh terraces, which will support emergent marsh vegetation. Construction work will restore 72 acres of intertidal marsh complex and create suitable habitat for oyster growth within the Dollar Bay/Moses Lake complex in Galveston Bay. Protection of this critical coastal habitat will contribute to the larger landscape scale conservation efforts in Galveston Bay, which has lost more than 35,000 acres of intertidal wetlands since the 1950s. The project is also supported by: USFWS Coastal Program, Texas GLO, Accenture, NFWF Gulf Coast Conservation Grants Program, Shell, Ducks Unlimited, Texas Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) Habitat Today for Fish Tomorrow and CCA Building Conservation Trust.