DOI Project #RIC65; Hurricance Sandy; Restore saltmarsh health and resiliency within the Narrow River drainage in the towns of South Kingstown and Narragansett, Washington County, Rhode Island.

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This is an announcement for issuing a single source financial assistance award to the State of Rhode Island, Coastal Resource Management Council. This announcement is for notification purposes only. The intent of the award is to restore saltmarsh health and resiliency within the Narrow River drainage in the towns of South Kingstown and Narragansett, Washington County, Rhode Island. The initial phase will be to complete the analysis of site conditions, including but not limited to saltmarsh habitat conditions, drainage, flows, and sediment characterizations, wetland assessment, bathymetry profiles and topographic surveys and modeling to evaluate the feasibility dredging a channel in the Lower Narrow River to improve estuarine conditions, and to make beneficial use of dredge materials to raise the elevation of saltmarshes threatened by sea level rise. This will be followed immediately by design, permitting and implementation of the dredging. This award is issued to provide financial assistance to collaboratively-developed priority projects in Hurricane Sandy disaster areas that will restore environmental resources through collaborative efforts with local communities. The project is expected to improve flood capacity, restore ecosystem function, improve flushing and water quality in the estuary, enhance the resiliency of saltmarshes to sea level rise, and to provide improved fish and wildlife habitat. This project was previously vetted and approved for funding by the Department of the Interior. The appropriation for this project is the Hurricane Sandy Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriation Act of 2013, Public Law 113-2. Criteria for funding was based on the project¿s ability to yield the greatest return on investment by taking advantage of existing science and regional planning tools for resiliency and by working with states, cities, communities, and partners who contribute to the goals of restoring and rebuilding national wildlife refuges and other federal public assets; and to increase resiliency and the capacity of coastal habitat and infrastructure and to withstand future storms and to minimize the damage incurredSaltmarsh resiliency will be obtained in three major ways. First, dredging of a channel will have a variety of benefits. It will improve flushing flows into and out of Pettaquamscutt Cove and adjacent areas, improving water quality and thereby reducing deleterious effects on saltmarshes from degraded water quality. Dredging of a channel will also help to confine boat traffic away from saltmarsh shorelines, thereby reducing erosion of these shorelines and subsequent loss of saltmarsh habitat. Both water quality and accelerated erosion of saltmarsh shorelines have been a long standing issue in the estuary. Channel dredging will also improve water flow by removing an excess of sediments in the channel, which has caused the river channel to braid and has increased saltmarsh loss, as river flow has been diverted to saltmarsh shorelines.

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