A harbor seal suns itself on the rocks of Shooting Island in 2019. (Photo courtesy of ACT Engineers)
By MADDY VITALE
The back bay system and marshlands provide beauty for those living around them on the barrier islands. But the delicate ecosystem is continually at risk due to rising sea levels and coastal storms.
The Ocean City Environmental Commission is hosting a lecture titled, "Ocean City’s Back Bays: Past, Present and Future," in person at 7 p.m. at City Hall and on Zoom Thursday, Nov. 10, to discuss ways they are working along with students and the city to protect the barrier island.
“To me, it is just highlighting the danger of climate change and the fact we need to secure the island any way we can,” said Rick Bernardini, chairman of the Environmental Commission. “
The event will be led by ACT Engineers and some of the Ocean City High School Student Environmental Association (SEA) members.
High School students volunteer each week to help their science teacher with the upweller at Bayside Center. (Photo courtesy of Keith Zammit)
Dr. Nick Brown from ACT Engineers will discuss a plan to help ensure a healthy and resilient ecosystem and students will talk about what has been going on at Bayside Center with an upweller, or shellfish incubator, and how they are helping to maintain it to ultimately help reinforce the shoreline.
The city received two grants over the past several years to help protect and restore Shooting Island, a 150-acre uninhabited island across from Tennessee Avenue in the resort.
Funding helped create a living shoreline on Shooting Island and fund the shellfish incubator or upweller. The upweller not only provides a hands-on tool for Ocean City High School students to make a difference, learning about marine life and helping to strengthen the shoreline, officials say.
In addition to helping keep the bay waters clean, the shellfish from the upweller are used to create “habitat castles” that act as a barrier to protect Ocean City from flooding and destructive waves crashing ashore during coastal storms, officials say.
Junetta Dix, director of environmental services for ACT Engineers, scoops out some of the baby clams being raised in the shellfish incubator, when the upweller was dedicated in October of 2020.
Ocean City High School teacher Keith Zammit has been one of the teachers leading the program for the SEA students to maintain the upweller.
Students involved in SEA, such as siblings Madeline and Josh Heng, of Ocean City, will speak during the Nov. 10 lecture about some of the ways they have helped maintain the upweller, Bernardini explained.
The will discuss what they have learned about the back bay ecosystem, raising shellfish from seed, and maintaining the upweller.
“They will talk about how they service the upweller, clean it and track the number and sizes of the shellfish,” Bernardini said.
He added that he hopes the community will attend the lecture or watch it on Zoom.
“We want to showcase what is going on there,” Bernardini emphasized of the upweller program at Bayside Center. “I don’t think people really know that these shellfish are grown to be put back on Shooting Island.”
