As the dredging done at the beginning of the project heavily impacted the ocean floor, the eelgrass transplant will both restore and grow life at the bottom. The team is treading with lofty goals for the ocean’s floor. The main MBC team consisted of Bob Moore (Senior Scientist), Wayne Dossett and Jennifer Rankin (Senior Technicians), David Schuessler, Jr and Jennifer Smith (Technicians), and Samuel Schipper (Associate Technician). In late April, MBC commissioned five employees to head south on the I-405 to team up with the Curtin Maritime subcontractors and begin work on the largest eelgrass transplant project of it’s time. March through October is the growing season for eelgrass, and is the time period during which eelgrass transplants are conducted, providing for the greatest regrowth on the ocean’s bottom. For 5 days a week for up to 15 weeks, 25 determined individuals are transforming Mission Bay. Once most of the dredging was completed and accepted by the City, MBC and Curtin Maritime brought in the transplant team of divers and eelgrass bundlers. The state mandates that with every acre experiencing dredging damage, 1.4 acres of eelgrass must be planted in order to achieve a final success rate of 1.2 times mitigation at the end of 5 years. As eelgrass is a diminishing resource, dredging projects in the state of California are regulated on both the state and federal level, with the intent to mitigate every acre damaged. The dredging impacted over 40 acres of eelgrass. To kick off the project, Curtin Maritime dredged about 63 acres of the bay bottom in order to successfully remove the shoals. With 36 years experience in eelgrass transplants, MBC teamed up with Curtin Maritime, to perform the work for San Diego Public Works, and tackle what is known as the largest eelgrass transplant project on the West Coast. Accompanied to the dredging was a large eelgrass transplant project, needed in order to restore the bay floor to its pre-dredging status. Dredging was scheduled to remove sediment over approximately 63 acres of bay bottom, and dispose of the material in approximately 10 acres of deep basins in the bay. Last year, the City of San Diego issued a solicitation for a “Navigational Safety Maintenance Dredge Project,” in Mission Bay, as a result of multiple public safety and private vessels experiencing difficulty navigating with shoals present within the bay.
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