Strong After Sandy

Hurricane Sandy’s landfall on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 was marked by record levels of storm surge in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, and tropical storm force winds impacted an area about 1,000 miles in diameter. A federal impact assessment in 2013 estimated that Sandy damages exceeded $50 billion, with 24 states impacted by the storm. In addition to the extensive loss of life, livelihood and property, the region’s natural areas were greatly impacted. National wildlife refuges suffered loss of habitat, refuge staff productivity and visitor opportunities. Rain washed out roads, trails and dikes, hindering habitat management and reducing visitor access. Storm surge left miles of debris and hazardous materials on beaches, in coastal marshes and forests, degrading habitat and endangering staff and visitors. High winds damaged buildings and caused power outages across refuge properties.

With the coming hurricane season set to begin on June 1, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues working hard with partners to enhance and strengthen coastal areas by restoring beaches, dunes and marshes, removing or replacing obsolete dams and damaged or undersized road culverts and building innovatively designed breakwaters and water control structures. These efforts are designed to benefit fish and wildlife resources, and at the same time protect people and communities from flooding and increased storm surge from future weather events.

Repair and Prepare

In May 2013 the Service received $65 million in initial Hurricane Sandy funding from the Department of the Interior, through the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act of 2013. Since then, the Service has been working extensively to make refuges safer and healthier for visitors and staff by cleaning up damage dealt to National Wildlife Refuges and upgrading facilities to withstand future storms.  Later that year the Service received an additional $102 million from the Act for 31 resilience projects which focus both on protecting coastal communities from flooding and future storms and addressing more long-term concerns, including sea level rise and preservation of habitat for vulnerable species.

Completed projects, those  in progress or projects that are projected to launch later this year include:

Before and after:
A coastal marsh area at New Jersey’s Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge just after Hurricane Sandy, and then about 18 months later after cleanup effort. Credit: Ryan Hagerty (before); Virginia Rettig (after)/USFWS.

Restoring Refuges: Since October 2013, the USFWS has removed nearly 500 tons of debris from beaches and coastal marshes at Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge and the Long Island National Wildlife Refuge Complex, at the heart of Hurricane Sandy’s impact zone. Debris fields along the New York-New Jersey coasts have contained roofs, docks, boats, barrels, fuel tanks, drums and household chemicals, as well as a few items of interest. When completed, the debris cleanup will restore thousands of acres of coastal marsh habitat and provide visitors opportunities for safe and healthy outdoor experiences at these natural areas once again.

The Service and its partners moved 45,000 tons of sand over three weeks to restore Delaware Bay beaches in New Jersey just in time for horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds.Credit: Eric Schrading/USFWS.

Bringing Back the Beach: March of 2014 was a busy time on the Delaware Bay, where the Service worked with partner organizations to restore five beaches that were severely eroded by Sandy. In under a month’s time, 45,000 tons of sand were spread over storm-scoured shores, finishing just in time for returning horseshoe crabs to spawn. For migratory shorebirds like the red knot, which depend on horseshoe crab eggs to make it to the arctic, this was a lifesaver, and early reports on crab and bird rebounds have been very encouraging thanks to these efforts. Restored beaches will also add a layer of protection for coastal communities in New Jersey and promote recreational beach use and ecotourism.

 

The Service is installing backup and solar power systems at 18 locations across the Northeast region.

Power Up: Sandy knocked out power in 15 states where an estimated 6 million customers were still without electricity days after the storm hit. Some areas—including some national wildlife refuges—remained without electricity for weeks. In places where USFWS stations were already equipped with emergency, self-powered electrical systems, refuges served as invaluable resources to their surrounding communities during the blackout. To prepare for future storms and equip many more refuges to serve their own communities in a similar capacity, the Service has invested more than $10 million in backup and solar power systems at 18 locations that will assure auxiliary power during future emergencies. Where solar PV arrays are installed, facilities’ carbon output will be reduced and thousands of taxpayer dollars saved on annual refuge utility bills. Installation at most locations is expected to be in full swing by mid-summer.

 

Hail Cove, at the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge in Maryland, is part of a $10 million living shoreline effort to restore coastal areas on the Chesapeake Bay. Credit: USFWS

It’s Alive: Funded projects in Maryland and Virginia are developing living shorelines in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, at places such as Martin National Wildlife Refuge’s Fog Point, and Hail Cove at the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge. These undertakings involve ongoing efforts to restore coastal habitat and native plant species, control erosion through dilution of wave energy and enhancement of submerged aquatic vegetation, and will provide flood mitigation in vulnerable communities. More than 25,000 feet of living shoreline will be constructed between the two projects, which collectively received more than $10 million of Hurricane Sandy resilience funding.

 

The Flock Process Dam, which poses a flood risk to both the Merritt Parkway and a major Amtrak rail line in Norwalk, CT, is one of many slated for removal as part of a region-wide effort to protect adjacent communities and restore natural river and stream connectivity. Credit: Steve Gephard/CTDEEP

Staying Connected: Across the Northeast there exist scores of aging, obsolete dams. Once vital parts of industrial communities across the region, these dams can be hazards to human safety and impediments to natural aquatic connectivity. Even before Sandy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has overseen dam removals, and is now funding several more planned for dams in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island. Dam removal projects can reduce flood risk from storm-swollen rivers and dam failure, restore access to spawning grounds for fish and eels and promote the return of natural sediment flow, which can help rebuild eroding coastline downstream.

 

Birdseye View: Avian Science meets Hurricane Recovery

Tagging red knots on Cape Cod. The yellow tag is a geo-locator; the lime green alphanumeric flag means it was banded in the U.S. Credit: USFWS

While the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to respond to damage from 2012’s Hurricane Sandy—clearing out wind-felled timber or hauling hundreds of tons of debris out of coastal salt marsh—the agency is also using science to assess the full scope of the storm’s ecological impact and establish a baseline for future conservation efforts. Some Service research that’s been integral to Hurricane Sandy recovery and resilience efforts is already visible in projects like the recently completed beach restorations along New Jersey’s Delaware Bay. This region has long been seen as indispensable to migrating shorebirds like the red knot, whose eastern population has plummeted 80 percent in the past decade.

While many of the most impacted bird species are shorebirds, studies by the Saltmarsh Habitat & Avian Research Program (SHARP), a collaborative effort between the Fish and Wildlife Service and several other academic, governmental, and privately funded partners, are focused more on marsh birds such as the seaside sparrow, the willet and the clapper rail. According to Randy Dettmers, a senior biologist with the Service, one project funded under the Hurricane Sandy umbrella (and preceded by supporting SHARP research) has targeted more than 1,700 observation points across tidal marshes from Maine to Virginia for post-Sandy monitoring of migratory bird populations.

Survey regions for USFWS/SHARP Tidal Marsh Bird monitoring.

Partners in the SHARP collaboration include the Universities of Maine, Delaware, New Hampshire, Connecticut and State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry, as well as the Audubon Society, the National Park Service, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife and many other state- and regionally based organizations. The program also employs dozens of graduate and undergraduate students who collect abundance, breeding and survival data by monitoring these sites and banding birds.

Student participants in the SHARP program, Left to Right: Chris Field, Univerity of Connecticut; Alison R. Kocek, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry; Mo Correll and Meaghan Conway, University of Maine. Credit: Margie Brenner/USFWS

Another Sandy-funded project launched by Dettmers and Service colleagues Chris Dwyer and Scott Johnston examines the prevalence and distribution of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV)—coastal plants that grow beneath the waterline and are primary food sources for wintering waterfowl, including the priority species Atlantic brant and American black duck. Studies of SAV in the wake of an intense storm like Sandy, Dettmers says, will provide an excellent picture of “how much of [the vegetation] is vulnerable to climate change impacts from sea-level rise and future major storm events and what the resulting impacts on wintering waterfowl populations are likely to be.”

American black ducklings nesting in coastal marsh. Credit: Peter McGowan/USFWS

Dettmers says the effects of predicted climate change will be increasingly challenging for coastal habitat and the species that depend on it. He expects that future storms and sea level rise will likely impact beach and tidal marsh habitats, affecting birds’ ability to find food and suitable nesting places, and that ultimately this may result in reduced bird populations.

“Species like the saltmarsh sparrow and seaside sparrow are endemic to the Atlantic coast marshes of North America,” he says.  “They don’t occur anywhere else in the world, and they’re highly vulnerable to sea-level rise and major storm impacts such as are expected from climate change. If tidal marshes in this part of the world are lost, we’ll lose those species as well.”

He adds that beach-dependent species like the red knot—already a candidate for threatened status under the Endangered Species Act because of other threats to its population—“will only be pushed further toward the endangered end of the conservation concern spectrum” if the loss of coastal habitat can’t be somehow stabilized.

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A clapper rail chick. Credit: Don Freiday/USFWS

To read more about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Migratory Birds program, click here. To read more about the SHARP program and its constituent collaborating agencies and institutions, click here.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working to repair and restore public lands on the Atlantic coast since Hurricane Sandy impacted them in October of 2012. To learn more about the Service’s ongoing efforts to facilitate habitat recovery and build coastal resilience that helps protect communities, please visit www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy.

 

Self-Empowered

Oct. 29, 2012: Hurricane Sandy knocked out power to an estimated 8.1 million individual locations in 17 states, as far west as Michigan. Outages affected some areas for weeks, and often more remote locations – like those that tend to encompass wildlife refuges – remained without for longer or were forced to rely on whatever backup power generators they had on hand.

Power Line damage at Target Rock National Wildlife Refuge on Long Island. Credit: Todd Weston/USFWS.

In the New York-New Jersey region, even some facilities that had generators found themselves faced with unexpected challenges like post-hurricane fuel rationing. This lasted an average of two weeks in the metro area and limited power supply, in many cases, to however much fuel had already been stockpiled. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Staff from the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in Basking Ridge, N.J. (only 25 miles from Times Square) found themselves driving as far as Pennsylvania to buy diesel for their generators. Other Fish and Wildlife refuges suffered in darkness for days after the super storm as well, including the Canaan Valley refuge in West Virginia, which was buried in over three feet of wet snow—a condition that did nothing to help keep power lines up in the region.

In response to extreme circumstances like those that occurred in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, backup and solar power system installations are planned for 18 U.S. Fish and Wildlife facilities throughout the Northeast region, including 17 refuges and the National Conservation Training Center in Shepardstown, West Virginia. The power projects form a unique subset of the Service’s Sandy recovery efforts—one that focuses keenly on resilience and preparation for projected future storms. They represent a substantial investment by the U.S. Department of the Interior in reliable emergency resources, and reaffirm its commitment to increasing federal facilities’ utilization of renewable energy sources.

After initially contracting out design work for a few planned power systems in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, Service engineers Mark Orton and Chuck Gess were tapped from within in an effort to speed up design and approval processes and save taxpayer dollars. The decision proved to be a good one, and now the power projects are nearing something of a critical mass, with many locations looking at installation by the summer of 2014.

Backup generators and photovoltaic solar power systems will be installed this year at 17 national wildlife refuges and the National Conservation Training Center.

According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facility management specialist Kevin Ortyl, sites equipped with backup and solar power proved invaluable in the aftermath of the super storm.

“Those stations that had backup power during Hurricane Sandy, including those at Long Island and Rhode Island refuges, were a great resource for their local communities,” says Ortyl. “Their headquarters and offices were used to coordinate emergency responses, provide logistical support, make phone calls and even offer cooked meals and showers.”

Increased use of renewable energy is a priority for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Credit: USFWS.

Photovoltaic (PV) solar power systems also represent an important part of the Service’s mission, he says.

“Solar PV and the need for alternative energy have always been important to FWS. The more we are off the grid and can lessen our carbon footprint, the better, and installing more solar PV is an ongoing opportunity to achieve this. Using a renewable resource such as the sun aids in our continuing effort to tread lightly.”

In addition to reducing the carbon output of Service facilities, solar PV will also save taxpayer dollars. At the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland, solar PV systems that Mark Orton designed are being installed at two buildings, and between them will save the refuge an estimated $6,210 in annual utility bills. Gess says that the systems he’s been designing will offset 40 percent of a building’s load (on average), though at least one PV system at Rhode Island’s Beane Point will provide 100 percent of its needs and will be totally off-grid.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working to repair and restore public lands on the Atlantic coast since Hurricane Sandy impacted them in October of 2012. To learn more about the Service’s ongoing efforts to facilitate habitat recovery and build coastal resilience that helps protect communities, please visit http://www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy.