Rachel Keith: So, Chad Thomas, you're the executive director, tell us about your nonprofit.
Chad Thomas: Our foundation was formed and founded with a mission to build world-class fisheries in North Carolina and thriving coastal economies. So, how can we improve our fisheries? How can we find gaps and voids in the research that can improve the science, recognizing that strong, sound science helps build those fisheries, which then, in turn, bring people into our communities where they will spend a lot of money.
RBK: And with your foundation, I mean, did you all see with Hewletts Creek and Bradley Creek, for example, that these could be better, and 'we need to raise the funds and then reach out to scientists to fill in the gaps for us'? Is this how this works?
CT: This project and our connection to Hewletts Creek and Bradley Creek really began with a handful of property owners around the creek that said, 'You know, we see you have a foundation here. We love these creeks. They're living systems in our backyard, and are they functioning as they should?'
So, both creeks sit on two very good lists: primary nursery area, a lot of baby fish and crabs, and high-quality waters because there are oysters there—two good lists, both of them.
There's a bad list, and that is where we're stepping in. So, 1973, we're looking at 53 years ago, Hewletts Creek had fecal coliform counts that were too high to allow for the consumption or harvest of oysters.
So, for 53 years, you have not been able to legally consume or take oysters from Hewletts Creek because of fecal coliform contamination. That fact has led to that creek and Bradley Creek being put on what's called the 303(d) list for impaired waters. So, there's the contradiction. [...] So, the best part about this project is that there's a measurable endpoint. The fecal coliform levels are monitored. We know what they are.
RBK: Who monitors them?
CT: They're done by the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County. They will contract that work to UNC Wilmington, and there's a lot of data there. So, this is one of those things where there is an accountability measure at the end. Did the fecal coliform levels come down, or did they not? And if we see them trending down, we may need to do different interventions, different mechanical movements, or whatever with sediments, perhaps. But all of this has to be done through an academic institution.
In this case, our research team is at UNC Chapel Hill and the Institute for the Environment, with Dr. Michael Piehler, the director, and Dr. Anne Smiley, an expert in coastal resilience. So that built our research team.
They brought us a proposal with timelines, and that work has already started. So there are two phases. The first phase will involve reviewing decades of data on land use, stormwater infrastructure, wetlands, oyster reefs, tidal exchange, and flow. We'll do this for every creek in Wilmington, so it's not just Hewletts and Bradley. It'll include all of Wilmington's tidal creeks. So we're calling this project the Wilmington Tidal Creeks Restoration Initiative.
[...] The creeks are filling up. And I think if you were to say what's the biggest threat to these creeks by way of pollution and contaminants, it's dirt. The dirt's coming off the land. Filling the creeks up is a problem. Additionally, spillage from sewer systems is also a culprit for those high fecal coliform levels.
RBK: And when are you hoping to get that first round of data? This is what we saw, and it sounds like phase two will be like, 'Okay, this is what we should be doing to rectify what we found.'
CT: So we're looking at six to eight months to have the first phase done. The second phase, looking at that spatial modeling, will be when the research team will come in and say, ‘Okay, well, here is some pilot work, some demonstrations, some experiments, some interventions that could be done in Hewletts Creek and in Bradley Creek.
Pairing those two creeks at the same time is a tremendous way to answer more questions. In other words, if the research team puts together some ideas for what can be done in Hewletts Creek, if we do those same things in Bradley Creek, did it work in one and not in the other? So now we have a paired test. So within the creeks and between the two creeks, we can compare and see what may work in one but not the other, or what may require a different type of intervention. They're different, even though they fall on the same list.
And some years ago researchers at UNC Wilmington stepped in with some regulators, and they recognized several areas of shoaling where sand had built up at the mouth of Futch Creek. They were looking at these pinch points where the flow was blocked. And when you have blockages, then you don't have good tidal flushing. You also don't have that exchange where water comes into the creek. And water coming into the creek is very important because of salinity; high salinity kills fecal coliform.
So in 1996, there were some interventions done, some strategic removal of sediments to remove three pinch points, and lo and behold, it worked. In the short term, fecal coliform increased during the removal, as you would expect, but several months later, the system settled out. The fecal coliform levels fell below the thresholds, and Futch Creek was open for oyster harvest for a period of time.
Unfortunately, Futch Creek is back on the impaired list for fecal coliform contamination. So, that hasn't been followed up on, so to speak. So, the idea here with Bradley Creek and Hewletts Creek is: can we identify and recognize improvements in the fecal coliform counts?
RBK: And Chad, too — the elephant in the room — and you can look at the map, and that is prime real estate. That's where a lot of people want to build their homes. They want to live by the water. But we know development is hard to balance with the natural world. And you wonder, like, how big of a part that plays, and is there a way to balance it, because people want to build in there; and the people that move in, they're like, ‘Oh, let's preserve the watersheds, but I have my house right here.’
CT: I mean, you used the perfect word. The word is 'balance'. Yeah. I mean, the people, the humans are part of the structure. I mean, we're working there. If you're looking specifically at Hewletts Creek and Bradley Creek, I mean, they're in the heart of Wilmington. UNC Wilmington's there. The mall is there. Everything's right there, and people want to be, as you mentioned, they want to be around the water, want to see the water, whether they own the property or not. They want to use it.
So we want to make sure that whether you live there or visit frequently, the use supports itself. So you're using a clean system. To your specific point, if you're looking at Hewletts Creek, that watershed, which drains about 7,000 acres, has over a quarter of impervious surface, which means concrete and asphalt. So, when water falls in the Hewletts Creek watershed, it can't infiltrate the ground and clean, so it runs off. So, how do you get that runoff to work through some swale, some type of buffer?
RBK: I mean, is the big goal to be able to eat oysters out of these creeks or go fishing if they're old enough and they fall within the regulations that you could fish in there? Is that the big goal for you, or are there other goals? Is it about preservation, too, with economic growth, and that's hard to reconcile as well?
CT: This project has an accountability measure, and that is if the fecal coliform levels come down, then if that happens over a period of time, then the creeks will come off of the shellfish closure area, and you could actually go in there, harvest oysters, and eat them. I mean, I love oysters, but I'm not eating them out of those creeks right now. Just not going to do it. Number two, if a part of this project has to do with having better habitat diversity in a primary nursery area, are there areas to go in and actually improve habitat that would then improve the abundance or increase the abundance of fish and shellfish?
In other words, if I'm a fish, do I want to live in Hewletts Creek? Do I want to live in Bradley Creek? Well, some of them do. Yeah, well, let's bring more in there. And again, if they're nursery areas and producer areas, then they're going to make their way in and out of the Intracoastal Waterway through our inlets into that nearshore ocean, depending on the species, and so we're getting back to that improving fisheries.
Resources
- North Carolina Marine & Estuary Foundation
- NCMEF Project: Track Red Drum
- NCMEF Project: Stripped Bass Stocking
- NCMEF Project: Coastal Boating Access
- City of Wilmington: Heal Our Waterways
