2009 NOAA Restoration Day:
NOAA Volunteers to Restore Critical Chesapeake Bay Habitat
On Thursday, June 18, 2009, more than two hundred NOAA employees, with state and local partners, participated in the sixth annual NOAA Restoration Day in two separate locations -- one in Maryland and the other in Virginia.
NOAA Restoration Day, organized by the National Ocean Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, is one of the largest voluntary federal employee-sponsored environmental stewardship events in the Chesapeake Bay watershed region. This event has grown every year as NOAA employees in Maryland and Virginia work to restore habitat at two sites in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Maryland Event
This year, the Maryland event took place at Otter Point Creek, a component of the Maryland Chesapeake National Estuarine Research Reserve. There were 14 teams of 130 NOAA staff in five different areas of the site. It started out as a very rainy day, but an impressive number of hardworking participants still showed up.
Restoration activities included:
- planting underwater grasses previously grown in twenty-two NOAA offices,
- planting native trees,
- removing invasive plants,
- monitoring birds, reptiles, and amphibians,
- seining for fish,
- performing four different digital elevation mapping exercises, and
- various other activities
Virginia Event
The Virginia event was held at First Landing State Park on Cape Henry in northern Virginia Beach with 46 volunteers. Activities included:
- planting over 3,000 dune plants to prevent erosion, and
- removing marine debris removed from the shoreline and nearby hiking trails
NOAA Restoration Day
The NOAA Restoration Day event provides an opportunity for employees to put into action the NOAA mission they support in their office work, and to demonstrate their commitment to restoration and protection of the Bay and NOAA science. See more details about the 2009 NOAA Restoration Day Event.
Why NOAA Should Help the Bay:
- The Chesapeake Bay is a national treasure that needs our help
- NOAA supports coastal habitat restoration activities
- NOAA staff are motivated by participating in environmental field work
- Activities are consistent with the NOAA mission
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