The Apalachicola Riverkeeper continues to move forward on its slough restoration project designed to increase water and nutrient flow into the river and bay system

The Apalachicola Riverkeeper continues to move forward on its slough restoration project designed to increase water and nutrient flow into the river and bay system.

 

River sloughs are important in transporting freshwater to floodplains and in controlling the flow of freshwater and nutrients into the river and ultimately into the Apalachicola Bay.

 

Because of man-made alterations to the river system, particularly decades of river dredging by the federal government, some sloughs were filled with sediment cutting off much of the natural water flow.

 

River dredging removed over a million cubic yards of sand a year.

 

The sand was either deposited the dredging “spoils” in the floodplain destroying habitat or piled in great mounds on the riverbank and then pushed back into the river with bulldozers when the water was high.

 

The theory was that the swift moving water would simply take it “away.”  

 

Over time, the sand built up in the sloughs like a dam trapping and killing fish and keeping nutrients from getting to the river.

 

The Apalachicola Riverkeeper project is focused on restoring three sloughs, the East River in Franklin County as well as Spider Cut and Douglas Slough, which are in Gulf County.

 

The sediment removal phase of the project will begin in late July along Spiders Cut off the Chipola River and Douglas Slough off the Apalachicola River. 

 

This phase of this restoration project will show how removing major man induced obstructions of the sloughs can allow needed waters to again flow into the floodplain swamps and backwater ponds.

 

Once work is completed, estimates are that flow will be doubled or tripled in these sloughs during low water levels, benefitting both the lower river floodplain and Blounts and East Bays.

 

The slough restoration could even help Tupelo Honey production by providing water to some of the swamps where the Tupelo trees grow.

 

The project is being done in partnership with the University of Florida and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve and is funded primarily by an over 5.3-million-dollar grant from the Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund.

 

 

 

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