This story was originally published by The Current GA.
At about 130 miles long, the St. Marys River is small enough that it’s a perfect laboratory to address the impacts of climate change across its watershed.
With a recently announced $716,000 grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the St. Marys Riverkeeper is developing a plan to do that by identifying the communities near the river most vulnerable to climate change.
“The deliverable is 10 priority, nature-based solutions that we can present to the community,” said Emily Floore, riverkeeper and executive director at the St. Marys Riverkeeper.
Credit: St. Marys Riverkeeper
Credit: St. Marys Riverkeeper
Possible solutions include developing living shorelines, replacing undersized culverts to prevent bottlenecks in waterways and removing little-used streets to allow creeks to return to their natural floodplains. The chosen solutions will be ready for site assessment and design, with the goal of protecting communities from flooding, and protecting and enhancing fish and wildlife habitats.
The plans they develop are more likely to come to fruition because the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation sets up a pipeline for next steps with grants available to fund project design, permitting and construction.
The Riverkeeper’s was one of 94 grant recipients announced by The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) and NOAA late last month. The $139 million in new grants will support nature-based solutions for coastal resilience in 31 coastal states and U.S. territories. The grants were awarded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund (NCRF), a partnership between NFWF, NOAA, the Department of Defense, Shell USA and Occidental. Funding for this year’s grants includes $92.5 million provided through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“NCRF provides essential funding for communities to develop and implement nature-based solutions that protect, create and restore essential habitat for fish and wildlife, lessen risks and damage from storms and flooding, and provide socio-economic benefits for residents,” Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF, wrote in a press release.
With the St. Marys forming the border between Florida and Georgia, its watershed includes the Georgia counties of Charlton and Camden and the Florida counties of Baker and Nassau. The riverkeeper organization works with local and state governments but is able to look past political boundaries to understand how the natural systems behave, Floore said.
In meeting with Florida-based officials, for example, Floore realized they hadn’t taken the Okefenokee Swamp into account when modeling flooding.
“It gave an incomplete picture of what’s happening,” she said.
Credit: The Current GA
Credit: The Current GA
MEET OUR PARTNER
This story comes from our partner The Current GA, an inclusive nonprofit, independent news organization which provides in-depth watchdog journalism for Savannah and Coastal Georgia’s communities. Sign up for their newsletter here.
If you have any feedback or questions about our partnerships, you can contact Senior Manager of Partnerships Nicole Williams via email at nicole.williams@ajc.com.
About the Author
