This project is more intensive, and in some ways, goes against our traditional thinking.”

“In the past, when we think about human impact on marshes we are talking about marshes that have been filled and we want to remove the filling,” Chaffee said. They then spread the materials out over the marsh and leveled the new surface. The contractor for the project, JF Brennan Company, dredged the waterway and deposited the dredged materials on the marsh throughout December 2016 into January 2017.

“There were a lot of hurdles we faced in permitting.” “This is a new technique, a new approach to marsh restoration for us,” Chaffee said. The CRMC, a Rhode Island state agency, and its partners developed a plan to use sediment from the nearby Charlestown Breachway to build up the elevation of the marsh to create a new surface to restore the coastal salt pond.Ĭaitlin Chaffee, Project Manager for the Rhode Island CRMC, said the project “started to look a whole lot worse at first, before it started to look better.” Funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Fund made it possible for the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council to step in and work to restore and enhance the existing salt marsh in an effort to bring back native species as well as protect the community from coastal flooding. Several years ago, in 2014, scientists studying the area observed that the salt marshes at Ninigret Pond were starting to drown, essentially transforming them into mud flats. The Pond and its surrounding salt marshes are a resource situated between the residents of Rhode Island and the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, serving as a natural buffer to storms. Ninigret Pond in Charles Town, Rhode Island is the state’s largest coastal salt pond. The coast of Rhode Island is home to gorgeous beaches, charming seaside towns, coastal wetlands, and a unique ecological feature called “coastal salt ponds,” or wetland estuaries that provide valuable habitat for an array of wildlife.

Ninigret pond dredging