Palm Bay - Thursday June 30, 2022: A platoon of up to 50 Marine Resources Council (MRC) and 'IDEAS For Us' staff and volunteers will be gathering tomorrow, Saturday July 2, to place 60 Concrete Creations along the shore of the Indian River Lagoon.
The oyster prisms, as they’re called, will be used to craft a 50-foot-long, experimental, eco-friendly shoreline showcasing a more sustainable way to protect the coast while enriching habitat for oysters, clams, and seagrasses to recover. The project is part of an ongoing, 1,000-foot shoreline restoration showcase, which has been evolving over 20 years at MRC headquarters to demonstrate resilient methods that residents can use to protect their property, enhance the beauty of their shoreline, and protect the Indian River Lagoon. This year, MRC launched a brand new program called Concrete Creations which will design and construct affordable and sustainable shoreline solutions.
The volunteers will be working Saturday, 9am to noon at MRC headquarters, at Ais Lookout Point Park, a Palm Bay city park, situated along the lagoon at 3275 Dixie Hwy. NE.
“We hope to encourage homeowners to use concrete creations and mangroves to stabilize their shorelines instead of seawalls,” says Caity Savoia, MRC’s lead restoration scientist, “because seawalls damage habitat and ultimately fail, causing worse erosion issues.”
If you would like to volunteer for the Concrete Creations program, go to: www.SaveTheIRL.orgwww.SaveTheIRL.org and register.
This project is the result of many ongoing collaborative efforts. IDEAS For Us, a group out of Orlando, is sending volunteer support to plant mangroves on Saturday and is MRC’s first corporate sponsor of the innovative Concrete Creations program. Other partners contributing to the success of this project include University of Florida, Florida Oceanographic Society, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Marine Discovery Center, City of Cocoa Beach, and the collaborative efforts of the Plastic-Free Restoration of Oyster Shorelines team.