Four environmental restoration projects stretching from the headwaters of the Bon Secour River to the shoreline of Dauphin Island have been awarded nearly $26 million in new funding drawn from penalties paid after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, state officials announced this week.
The money comes from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund, a program created to direct settlement dollars from the disaster toward projects that repair natural resources along the Gulf Coast and reduce the risk of future damage from storms and erosion. The latest round brings the program’s total investment in Alabama to roughly $267 million across 38 projects since it began.
Governor Kay Ivey said the newly funded work builds on a decade of recovery efforts along the coast. State officials described the projects as part of a broader strategy that pairs habitat repair with practical storm protection for coastal communities, an approach that has guided funding decisions since the program’s earliest rounds.
Every project in this round was selected after review by the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which coordinates with NFWF on how settlement money is spent in the state. ADCNR Commissioner Chris Blankenship singled out the Dauphin Island Causeway project as an example of the kind of collaboration the program is designed to encourage, noting that it draws together multiple agencies to rebuild habitat while shoring up a route that connects the island to the mainland.
The largest award, just under $19 million, will fund the second phase of the Dauphin Island Causeway Shoreline and Habitat Restoration Project. The work will install a breakwater and build new intertidal marsh habitat to guard against erosion and storm damage along the causeway, which serves as the only road connecting south Mobile County to Dauphin Island. The first phase of the project, funded in April 2020 with more than $9.3 million, is already underway. An additional $4.9 million for the causeway work is coming through NFWF’s Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund, a separate pot of money created under the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2019 that allows NFWF and NOAA to jointly award storm-resilience grants. Federal officials credited U.S. Senator Richard Shelby’s work in Congress for securing that funding stream.
On the east end of Dauphin Island, a $1.4 million award will pay for engineering, design and permitting work to restore nearly a mile of beach and dune habitat. The plan calls for placing an estimated 1.2 million cubic yards of sand along roughly 4,800 feet of shoreline, rebuilding about 35 acres of beach and dune habitat, with sand fencing and native plantings added to help hold the new sand in place. The town of Dauphin Island completed an earlier phase of the same beach restoration effort in 2016 using Coastal Impact Assistance Program funds.
Two more awards target watershed problems near Foley that have been building for years as the area has grown. A $5.1 million grant will fund construction on the second phase of the Bon Secour River Headwaters Restoration project, which aims to stabilize about a mile of streambank and build a 70-acre wetland system just downstream from Foley to filter urban runoff before it reaches the lower Bon Secour River and Bon Secour Bay. The project targets nutrients, sediment and debris that have been degrading water quality and harming fisheries downstream, and it addresses what planners identified as the top priority in the previously funded Bon Secour Watershed Management Plan.
A separate $500,000 award will cover engineering and design for the first phase of the Wolf Creek Headwaters Restoration project, aimed at reducing sediment runoff into Wolf Bay, which is designated an Outstanding Alabama Water. Wolf Creek’s headwaters have become the largest source of artificially elevated sediment flowing into the bay, driven largely by two decades of development around Foley. The design calls for roughly 7,000 linear feet of stream restoration and stabilization, 36 acres of riparian wetland restoration, and a new constructed wetland with floodplain enhancements intended to absorb stormwater and reduce erosion during future storm events.
Officials say the projects reflect a shift in how coastal restoration money is being spent in Alabama, with an increasing share going toward work that combines ecological repair with tangible flood and storm protection for nearby communities. More information on Deepwater Horizon-funded restoration work across the state is available through the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources.