News Release

Assateague Island National Seashore receives grants from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to restore Saltmarsh and study seagrass meadows

Healthy and sick seagrass

NPS Photo

News Release Date: March 20, 2024

Contact: Hugh Hawthorne, 410-629-6080

Assateague Island National Seashore (ASIS) is one of several National Park Service sites on the Atlantic Coast that will benefit from two new coastal resource management projects recently funded through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Assateague will receive a portion of a $3.3 million saltmarsh restoration and adaptive planning project that is currently being planned for the Fall of 2024. Nearly 100% of the saltmarshes on the Maryland portion of Assateague Island were ditched and drained during the 1930’s by the Civilian Conservation Corps in a failed attempt to control mosquito populations. These mosquito ditches remain a visible scar on the landscape and impact the ecology and function of the park’s salt marsh ecosystem. The National Park Service piloted an innovative restoration project in 2008 that utilized native beach sand to fill and successfully restore hundreds of acres of impacted marshes. This new IRA funding will allow that effort to resume.

A second project will develop new scientific information to enhance resilience of seagrass meadows through future restoration and rehabilitation in an effort to reverse declining seagrass trajectories across coastal parks from Maine to North Carolina. Seagrass meadows adjacent to Assateague Island will be studied and mapped to identify key traits that are most resilient to climate stressors. This data will be used to identify optimal areas for future seagrass restoration.

Seagrass meadows are a valuable and biodiverse habitat that serves as nurseries for commercially important fish, reduces coastal erosion, and improves water clarity, and efficiently captures carbon. Eelgrass (Zostera marina), the main seagrass species in eastern national seashores, is declining at an alarming rate, most recently due to increasingly high summer water temperatures.

For general information about the Seashore and park activities access the park’s web site at www.nps.gov/asis or call 410-641-1441.

-NPS-