Have you heard the news?
Reef Balls have are evolving, well at least some have developed a desire to be above the surface, interacting and supporting life within the Land / Sea interface. This new complex form of the Reef Ball comes to us as the Eco Rap Living Shoreline Environmental Protection.
Thats right, The Reef Ball Foundation has broken the surface and is now supporting life of intertidal species and even some mamals with their new environmental product!
How Exciting! But Wait, there’s more…
What is this Eco Rap Living Shoreline Environmental Protection?
The ERLSEP is a Reef Ball Foundation, environmental protection product, which has five goals:
- First of all it environmentally enhances and soften harden areas by creating new living platforms.
- Also, living shorelines create new multilayered horizontal habitats by enhancing traditionally sterile surfaces.
- In addition, the living shoreline supports & protects property by mitigating wave energy and reducing the scouring effect.
- Another benefit of the living shoreline is that it reduces shoreline & seawall maintenance costs by improving life cycle costs.
- Finally living shorelines are creating “Good Change” in our environment by offering environmental products for residential installations.
The Science of the living shoreline
We achieve these afore mentioned goals by nestling the ERLSEP in front of a hardened shoreline or land based structure. Therefore providing a first line of defense for incoming storm or vessel driven waves.
The design and engineering behind the ERLSEP creates a synergistic wave disruption pattern, causing the inbound waves to become “out of phase”.
And the results are fantastic! The reflective “out of phase” waves impact the inbound “in phase” waves directly over the ERLSEP. Consequently it greatly reduces the kinetic energy the inbound “in phase” waves are carrying.
That’s the power of the living shoreline!
As a result, the outbound “out of phase” reflective waves are now impacting other inbound “in phase” waves further reducing kinetic energy. This helps to mitigate and dampening any carried energy, thereby reducing environmental stressors.
Whew…
Recently, the installation at Palmettos Green Bridge was tested by Tropical Storm Colin, if you would
like to see the ERLSEP in action, please watch this video here to see the living shoreline in Palmetto, Florida.
Palmetto’s Living Shoreline installation, as pictured below, is also recorded as a primary production site. Several large schools of Menhaden (Often called “bait fish” or “Minnows”) are present as well as various other types of juvenile fishes, crabs, snails and algae. Manatees have been spotted eating algae from the installation. And birds, such as the endangered Least Tern and the Anhinga, have been recorded using the ERLSEP for hunting.
Leadership & Stewardship for Living Shorelines
The ERLSEP draws on the tried & true techniques which has made The Reef Ball Foundation. The Foundation has been the leader in artificial reef technology for the last twenty years. Perspectively speaking, every single week of every single month there is a Reef Ball project being conceived, developed, constructed or deployed somewhere on our great big earth!
To date there are roughly 1,000,000 Reef Balls in the water in over 70+ countries, practically spanning the entire globe.
We are hoping that this new platform for the land / sea interface appeals to waterfront homeowners. Especially if they want to have a hands on approach to helping the marine environment by creating a living shoreline.
This new environmental product falls in line with a new permit process offered by the FDEP Federal Department of Environmental Protection. The new federal programmatic permit limits the length of a living shoreline to 500 linear feet and a maximum of 35 ft. waterward of the high tide line. In addition, it is limited to no more than 0.5 acre area between natural shoreline and the structure.
Got to know more about the living shorelines?
So, fill out this form or shoot us an email : [email protected]. And we will fill you in on the particulars.
Seem like you too could soon be on your way to having your very own, aesthetically pleasing, biodiverse, ecosystem nestled up along side your seawall, protecting your property.
