The Mission Never Ends: The Wetlands Institute Plans to Elevate Salt Marsh Trail, Restore 5 Acres of Marsh
Sunny-day nuisance flooding inundates the marshes and Salt Marsh Trail more than 60 times per year now.
For the past several years, The Wetlands Institute (TWI), working with our partners at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, have been pioneering innovative approaches to building coastal resilience using dredged sediments derived from maintenance dredging of New Jersey’s Intracoastal Waterway.
These distinctive projects are all part of a think tank we created right here, the Seven Mile Island Innovation Lab. So far, the Innovation Lab has implemented nine projects that have restored or created marsh habitat while conveying the added benefits of increasing coastal resilience to protect our communities from the increasing risk associated with marsh loss from rapidly rising seas.
Collectively, we have restored more than 100 acres of marsh and slowed marsh loss for hundreds of additional marsh acres. The research and outreach associated with these projects have dramatically moved the needle with policy shifts at the federal, state, and local levels. That is making these projects more acceptable, cost effective, and achievable. Lessons learned here are being applied to projects around the state and up and down the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and having a national impact.
Our most recent project, the Scotch Bonnet Marsh Enhancement Project that was completed in the fall of 2024, helped stabilize the drowning marsh adjacent to TWI and is visible from Stone Harbor Boulevard. This project, featured in the Spring issue of Seven Mile Times, (sevenmiletimes.com/spring-2025-articles/rebuilding-healthy-marshes-to-save-scotch-bonnet-island) lifted the marsh to reestablish suitable tidal flooding levels needed for healthy marsh growth and offset sea level rise by several decades. The project is beginning to show signs of vegetation recolonization and will be subject of ongoing monitoring by the research teams at TWI, partner universities, and the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Scotch Bonnet project is strategic in that it focused on an area of rapid marsh loss in a location that was resulting in loss of resilience and nature-based protections from storms approaching from the south that a healthy marsh would provide.
In an effort to continue to showcase the importance and possibilities of innovative solutions that increase resilience, reduce coastal risk, and provide benefits to wildlife and people, TWI is in the process of planning for a second project. This project seeks to raise the elevation of the Salt Marsh Trail at TWI, restore 5 additional acres of marsh, and create habitat for nesting diamondback terrapins and marsh-dependent birds.
The Salt Marsh Trail is a hub of activity and serves as one of the most significant ways we serve our mission. The trail makes the marsh accessible and provides a connection to Scotch Bonnet Creek, the dock and pier, and the boathouse. It serves as the connection to the elevated walkway, allowing visitors of all ages and abilities an opportunity to get out in the marsh to experience the wonders of an otherwise watery world. The research and conservation department relies on the dock to access our research skiffs, enabling them to continue their life-saving work.
In addition to the ways our programs focus on the Salt Marsh Trail, so too do several species of sensitive wildlife. High marsh and upland habitats in close proximity to the marsh, like the Salt Marsh Trail, are highly valued habitats. The trailside trees are valued nesting sites and feeding areas for several species of birds, and diamondback terrapins favor the higher ground for nesting.
The Salt Marsh Trail is an old road that was built in the late 1950s to access Scotch Bonnet Creek for planned development. That development failed, and TWI was founded there instead. The trail elevation averages 4 feet and drops to a low of 3 feet at the boathouse. In 2000, the trail flooded twice per year; in the last five years, the trail has flooded more than 330 times; an average of 67 times per year! That flooding is not only impacting access and educational programs but also killing the trees and flooding nesting areas used by diamondback terrapins and coastal birds.
When completed, the project will raise the elevation of the Salt Marsh Trail to enhance educational opportunities and visitor programs that are being impacted by increasing flooding. It will preserve access to the dock and boathouse for research programs, and like all our projects uses nature-based solutions to recreate important habitats for marsh-dependent species – especially diamondback terrapins and coastal birds. This is so much more than a project to raise a road; it embodies a vision to do better – to build resilience for TWI while enhancing our ability to serve our constituents whether they are visitors connecting with the marsh, our scientists studying the dynamics of the marsh, or the plants and animals that depend on healthy marshes. It’s an innovative ecosystem-based approach that can accomplish all of these things.
The project design calls for raising the elevation of the Salt Marsh Trail by 2 to 3 feet; widening the trail to better accommodate programs; replacing the boathouse with a modest structure; and creating new high marsh and transitional upland habitat specifically designed for diamondback terrapin nesting and coastal birds. It will be replanted with native plants designed to maximize the benefit to the marsh ecosystem and the plants and animals that depend on it. When it is completed, we will also have created an important barrier to storm waves, conferring additional resilience to the TWI campus. When combined with the Scotch Bonnet Marsh Enhancement Project, we will have added storm protections from wave attack from both the south and east, the primary vulnerabilities for our marsh campus.
The planning phase of this project will be completed in early summer. All of us working on the project are excited to see the innovative approach being taken to build coastal resilience, enhance educational opportunities, improve access for visitors, and benefit wildlife into the future.
The planning and permitting phases of this work have been funded by a federal grant in partnership with NJDEP. New funding will be needed to implement the construction phase, which we are hoping to initiate in the winter of 2026.
The collection of projects that we are implementing around TWI’s marsh campus is designed to serve as demonstration projects where we can continue to provide opportunities for learning about nature-based innovation for applications for coastal resilience.
Come see for yourself. Explore all the institute has to offer and see what all the excitement is about!
