New Jersey's coast has been giving way to rising seas for years, and its beach-nesting birds have been losing nesting habitat right along with it. In August 2014, project partners tried an odd solution with sand dredged from a nearby waterway. According to The Waterways Journal, a dredging contractor working with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers placed about 7,000 cubic yards of that sediment on Ring Island, a marsh island in Middle Township near Stone Harbor in Cape May County, to build a raised berm of bird habitat. The Corps' Philadelphia District describes this as a departure from the traditional practice of placing dredged material in confined disposal facilities. The goal was to turn that sand into a raised nesting platform for colonial and marsh-nesting birds that were losing habitat and having nests flooded.
A shrinking coastline, a shrinking nursery
