Annual Beach Grass Planting held March 24
DNREC thanks all the volunteers who came out despite dreary wet weather to plant 150,000 stems of beach grass in Bethany Beach, Dewey Beach, Rehoboth Beach, Bowers Beach and South Bowers Beach!
On Saturday, March 24, the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, with the help of many volunteers, planted beach grass along the Atlantic Ocean and Delaware Bay public beaches.
DNREC would also lilke to thank the City of Rehoboth Beach, the Town of Dewey Beach and the Town of Bethany Beach for providing restrooms for volunteers to use, the Delaware Mobile Surf Fisherman for providing refreshments and to Giant, Pepsi Co., Super Fresh and Safeway for providing drinks to volunteers.
About the beach grass planting:
Volunteers are the backbone of Delaware's shoreline stabilization. Every spring since 1990, many dedicated volunteers have stabilized Delaware's sand dunes by planting more than 5 million stems of Cape American beachgrass along ocean and bay beaches.
Sand dunes are more than beautiful! Sand dunes provide protection against damaging coastal storms by absorbing wave energy. Sand dunes offer protection by acting as major sand storage areas which replenish sand to eroded beaches during storm events. Without sand dunes, storm waves rush inland and flood properties.
Dunes are unstable - subject to the ravages of wind and water. Beachgrass helps build and stabilize dunes. Blades of grass help trap wind blown sand which can create new dunes and expland existing dunes.
To promote new dune growth and to help protect inland properties from the ravages of flood waters, we must limit – and sometimes prohibit –people and vehicles from crossing dunes in all but designated areas. Especially as applies to beachgrass, which has thick, brittle stalks that can easily be broken and destroyed by pedestrian or vehicular traffic.
Please help conserve Delaware's beaches by telling friends and family about the importance of beachgrass, and reminding them to stay off of the dunes.
If you have questions about beach grass planting, or would like additional information about it, please call (302) 739-9921 or e-mail your questions to Jennifer.Luoma@state.de.us.
Also, please visit: Dune Protection and Improvement and Barrier Island/Sand Cycle to learn more about beach and dune preservation.
Photos by Jennifer Wheatley
