Ocean Marine Yacht Club, Florida
Coastal Systems planned and designed an 8-slip docking facility at the site of a 28-story multi-family residential development on the Intracoastal Waterway in Broward County. Hydrographic and marine resource surveys were conducted within the existing basin, and marina slip mix alternatives were developed. Through the regulatory permitting process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, South Florida Water Management District, and Broward County EPGMD, a marina design was prepared for the docking facility that required unavoidable impacts to seagrass. Seagrass species found within the Project area include Halodule wrightii (shoal grass) and Halophila johnsonii (Johnson's seagrass) in water depths ranging between -1.0 and -8.0 feet (NGVD). An approximate 0.104 acre seagrass habitat restoration project was designed to offset 0.055 acres of impacts from shading (direct and indirect) according to the Uniform Mitigation Assessment Method (UMAM), which was successfully negotiated with the environmental permitting agencies.
The goal of the mitigation project is to offset the losses in seagrass habitat due to shading by creating additional seagrass habitat to allow similar species to colonize and coalesce with an equal or greater area covered by an equivalent or greater percent coverage (value of function provided). The habitat restoration project will be constructed by excavating the existing peninsula located within the basin on the project site.
This peninsula is proposed to be removed and scraped down to match the existing surrounding elevations, to a maximum depth of -4.0 feet (NGVD). The success criteria will be to achieve a density comparable to that of a shoal grass and Johnson's seagrass bed located at a similar depth near the mitigation area. Construction methodologies including turbidity controls to protect adjacent marine resources were developed, and construction should be completed in late 2010.
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