Lightning Point, Bayou La Batre, AL

In partnership with City of Bayou La Batre, Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Mobile County, and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, The Nature Conservancy constructed one mile of overlapping segmented breakwaters and jetties and utilized more than 240,000 cubic yards of dredged material to create 40 acres of marsh and upland habitats and 10,000 linear feet of tidal creeks. This project resulted in creating diverse habitats to support a wide range of fish, shellfish, and birds, while protecting this locally important waterfront area of this iconic town for fishing community culture.

Lightning Point (LP) in Bayou La Batre, AL has been exposed to coastal storms and hurricanes for more than a century. The 14-month design and engineering phase for the LP Shoreline Restoration Project began with the site impacted by Category 1 Hurricane Nate in October 2017 losing more than 30 feet and emphasizing the need for restoration. Project designs included 1.5 miles of overlapping, segmented breakwaters and jetties, 10,000 linear feet of tidal creeks, and ~40 acres of habitat: 35 acres intertidal marsh habitats at an elevation of 0 to +2 feet and 5 acres of scrub-shrub at +4 feet, plus 1 acre of recycled oyster shell hash from Alabama Coastal Foundation was added as a layer for diamondback terrapins and shorebirds. Overall, a heterogeneous habitat mimicking nearby natural coastal marshes and barrier islands was constructed over 8 months beneficially using more than 240,00 cubic yards of dredged material from nearby borrow sites including former upland USACE disposal area decommissioned in the 1980s and owned by the Forever Wild Land Trust. Construction began in late fall 2019 and completed in July 2020 just in time for the 2020 hurricane season with 8 significant Gulf of Mexico tropical systems, where 4 systems produced storm surges ranging from 3.3 feet to maximum surge of +7.9 feet (Zeta). The project performed successfully in its first test as the new defender of Bayou La Batre with minimal erosion across the new habitats and breakwaters.
The culturally and ecologically significant LP shoreline has been restored with a hybrid of adaptively designed “hard” structures and “softer” ecosystem habitat restoration measures. The newly created intertidal marshes and higher scrub-shrub areas are welcoming various shore and wading birds, fisheries, and other wildlife species. Immediate colonization by nesting least terns and migratory birds is a testament to the ecologically sensitive nature of the design and environmental uplift to the regional natural resources.

Lightning Point is a highly complex project composed of symbiotic green and gray features. This project adds to the Portersville and Grand Bays’ local ecosystem by restoring habitat for birds (local and migratory), terrapins, wildlife, recreationally- and commercially-important fisheries, where surrounding barrier islands are eroding from years of storms. For Bayou La Batre, this project enhances the community’s waterfront aesthetics and contributes to improvement of the local citizens’ quality of life and resilience to future coastal hazards. This project has been visited by multiple other coastal restoration practictioners and grantors for replication in other US regions and even internationally.