Project to save marshland applauded in Charles City

Wildlife and conservation officials are applauding a $211,000 public/private effort to save more than 500 acres of tidal marshland along the James River in Charles City County.

Corporate sponsors, working under the banners of the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the James River Association, pitched in to install 1,825 feet of riprap, creating a stone barrier between the river and marsh at Ducking Stool Point. The site is where Herring Creek empties into the James, just downstream from the main house at Westover Plantation.

Westover’s owners, Fred and Muschi Fisher, hosted a Dec. 4 celebration saluting completion of the project. On hand were representatives from each corporate sponsor along with officials from government agencies.

Aerial photos taken in 1937 show a wooded shoreline separating the river from the marsh. Today, only a tiny portion of the land barrier and a few trees remain. Officials opted for the riprap solution after attempts to restore vegetation failed.

Wildlife officials point to wakes from large ocean-going vessels and increased barge traffic on the James as the underlying cause for the land’s erosion and the marsh’s deterioration.

“We were at the point where we could have lost the whole area,” said Albert Spells, the project leader and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s fisheries coordinator in Charles City.

Spells applied for and obtained a $100,000 federal grant in 2004. Then working with the James River Association, he enlisted corporate sponsors who funded the remainder of the project’s cost. Construction of the riprap barrier began in October and took four weeks to complete.

The project is the first wetlands restoration effort in Virginia involving corporate partners.

Vulcan Materials Company provided 3,600 tons of riprap, valued at $69,000, while Coastal Design and Construction absorbed the $10,000 bill for installing the stone. The Virginia chapter of the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership, which includes Dominion Virginia Power, Phillip Morris USA, Smithfield Foods, Smurfit-Stone, Waste Management, VCU, and VMA Outreach, donated $30,000 and the James River Association chipped in $2,000.

The stabilization project should save the marsh, which is an important spawning and nursery area for river herring, hickory shad, striped bass, and the American eel, Spells said. The marsh also serves as habitat for largemouth bass, black crappie, bluegill, and catfish as well as waterfowl including the bald eagle. Young Atlantic sturgeon have also been found near the site.

Charles City Board of Supervisors chairman Gilbert Smith spoke during the event and praised the project.

“I’m glad this project is in Charles City,” he said. “It shows we care about waterways and the environment. If someone did not have the vision to do this, something we all could enjoy would have been destroyed.”