First construction phase of Dauphin Island Shoreline Restoration Project nearing completion

DAUPHIN ISLAND, Ala. ( WKRG ) — The first phase of the Dauphin Island Causeway Shoreline Restoration Project is nearing completion. It is designed to restore marsh habitat and increase the resilience of the Causeway.

Decades of erosion will soon be restored.

Mobile County’s Director of Environmental Services, Tina Sanchez, said this project is funded with $30 million of BP Oil Spill money.

“We’ve lost hundreds of feet since 2017 along the shore here,” said Sanchez.

Mobile County has begun constructing breakwaters along the causeway for the first phase.

The next two phases include construction crews dredging sediment and laying a pipeline to pump the sediment inside the breakwaters, which will then create a marsh area along the roadway.

The last phase will establish the marsh platform and enhance the area into a more natural habitat. The gaps within the breakwaters will help allow water to flow in and out.

“It helps with community resilience by protecting and the road, the Dauphin Island Parkway, to route to Dauphin Island. And it protects the marshes to the west,” Sanchez said. “And we get an added benefit by installing breakwaters and then restoring about 100 acres of marsh between the breakwaters and the road.”

“We get that ecosystem service benefit from that newly restored marsh,” Sanchez continued.

Barry Wood is a Dauphin Island resident.

Wood hopes the project will help protect the roadway and make it easier to get back on the island after major storms.

“It’s got to help because even after minor storms, not big-time storms, but minor storms where the waves were hitting the rock beds on the side of the road before we could even get back to the island,” Wood said. “The crews had to come by and put all the rocks back in place, and they were some big rocks.”

The first phase will be completed by the end of September. The second phase is expected to begin by spring 2025 with the final phase tentatively scheduled for summer 2025.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WKRG News 5.