Dauphin Island Restoration

Founded in 2009, Dauphin Island Restoration is committed to stabilizing, restoring and preserving Alabama’s only coastal barrier island, particularly the gulf-front shoreline which has faced serious erosion issues for decades.

Members/supporters of our group (the DI Restoration Task Force) include West End property owners, East End property owners, and even people who do not own property on the island but love it and want to help.

We cherish the island and feel it is a vital land mass serving many purposes for coastal Alabama – environmental, recreational, tourism, commercial and industrial.  We seek to pursue both short and long term solutions to meet those goals.

Our Goals

• Raise awareness of, and rectify, the imbalance of shoreline restoration funding between Alabama and other Gulf Coast states, and between Dauphin Island and other coastal areas in Alabama.

• Raise awareness of the fact that the island has public beaches, which can be enjoyed by anyone.  It is a treasure for all Alabamians, and all Americans as well.

• Raise awareness of the crucial role that Dauphin Island plays in the estuarine environment of the Mississippi Sound and Mobile Bay with regard to environmental and wildlife protections as well as recreational and commercial fishing interests.

• Lobby our elected officials to provide funds to restore our state’s only barrier island, as has been done for other barrier islands around the country.

• Work to find immediate solutions to deal with the public beach crisis areas on both sides of the island, but particularly on the West End where homes, lots and public beach are underwater or rapidly eroding.

• Work to find solutions for ongoing maintenance and preservation, most notably, seeking a change of sand deposition locations from ongoing Mobile Harbor dredging to bring sand closer to the island.

Our Long Term Strategy

• Restore the shoreline for the entire island to pre-Katrina levels or better.

• Convince Congressional and State leadership to implement the Corps of Engineers’ 1978 recommendations on the dumping location for sand dredged from Mobile Bay.

• Develop a plan for ongoing maintenance, to keep the shoreline as stable as possible.

• Secure ongoing funding from public and private sources.

See also:  The Islandkeeper Blog