Lincoln Park Tidal Wetland Restoration – Rebuilding an Urban Tidal Marsh with Beneficial Reuse Sands

摘要

Background/Objectives. In the mid 1900s, a tidal marsh located along the HackensackRiver in Jersey City, New Jersey, became an illegal dumping ground for unpermittedwastes. Abutting Lincoln Park, a 250-acre park tucked between the Hackensack Riverand Jersey City that is an important recreational destination for the over 650,000 peopleliving in Hudson County, it languished for many years as unusable open space. The NewJersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) took on the task of restoring 42acres of this no-man’s land back to its original condition as a tidal marsh. Using fundingfrom Natural Resource Damage settlements from discharges of hazardous substances inthe estuary, as well as a grant from funds entrusted to NOAA by the American Recoveryand Reinvestment Act of 2009, NJDEP hired The Louis Berger Group, Inc., to overseethe restoration of this marsh. Several objectives were set up during the conceptual designfor the restoration of the site, including the following:1.Restoration via dredging of an onsite pond that had become almost entirely silted in2.Establishment of fish passage for anadromous species to this pond3.Creation of new low marsh to the maximum extent possibleAdditionally, the plan sought to take advantage of a large, low-cost source of fill materialvia the beneficial reuse of dredge sands from maintenance dredging in the Hudson RaritanEstuary.Approach/Activities. The three restoration goals were, for the most part, easily accommodatedin the design plan and will be covered in the presentation. However, thebeneficial reuse of dredge sands proved to be a real challenge. From establishing the trueextents of unpermitted fill, calculating how much clean dredge material to bring in, to thefinal construction of the planting stratum using the dredge sands, this task proved to bemuch more complex than anticipated. This dredge sand came from the NY Harbor andwas made possible through the combined efforts of NJDEP, USACOE NY division,PANYNJ and NOAA. This effort marks the first time that dredge sands were used tocreate a tidal marsh in New Jersey.This project will be completed and open to the public in the summer of 2012. Thisproject has also recently received the 2011 Coastal America Partnership award.Results/Lessons Learned. As noted above the beneficial reuse of the dredge sands provedto be a challenge. This presentation will focus on the lessons learned in using dredge sands