The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will hold a community meeting on the Pensacola Bay Living Shoreline Project. The project is located in Escambia County at two sites along an urban shoreline of Pensacola Bay. This project was approved as part of Phase III of the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) early restoration. Total funding for this project is $10.8 million.
This meeting will provide the community with project information and an update on project planning and design. Conceptual project design layouts for the Project GreenShores Site II and the Sanders Beach site will be presented. A forum for questions and comments concerning the conceptual designs will be provided, however, there will not be a formal public comment period. Public comments were taken as part of the Phase III Early Restoration Plan and PEIS. Comment cards will be provided; comments on the conceptual project design layouts will be considered by project planners, however, written responses to comments will not be provided by the department or NOAA..
The Pensacola Bay Living Shoreline project was developed to compensate the public for adverse impacts to ecosystem productivity and salt marsh habitats along Florida’s Panhandle as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This living shoreline project will foster reef development and create salt marsh habitat by constructing breakwaters and planting salt marsh vegetation at two sites. Living shorelines protect and stabilize shorelines while creating new habitat for fish, oysters and birds at the same time. The project will provide habitat at two sites in the city of Pensacola, Escambia County along the shoreline of Pensacola Bay; Project GreenShores Site II is located immediately west of Muscogee Wharf in downtown Pensacola and the Sanders Beach site is three miles to the west, near the mouth of Bayou Chico. In total, approximately 18.8 acres of salt marsh habitat and 4 acres of reefs will be create.
WHAT: Community Meeting
WHEN: 6-8 p.m., July 18
WHERE: Sanders Beach-Corinne Jones Resource Center, 913 South I St.