Mooring Buoy Eelgrass Restoration

Friends of the San Juans (FSJ) utilized the mooring buoy inventory results from the San Juan County Shoreline Modification Inventory to restore eelgrass habitat in priority areas by implementing the Mooring Buoy Eelgrass Restoration Pilot Project with interested landowners. Just under 2,000 buoys and floats were documented by the modification inventory. Over two-thirds of existing buoys located in eelgrass habitat in San Juan County are of a design known to negatively impact eelgrass and macroalgae (Betcher and Williams, 1996). Fish, including juvenile salmon, are often indirectly impacted from mooring buoys through loss of prey, shallow water refugia, and nursery habitat (WDNR, 2005). The goal of the Mooring Buoy Eelgrass Restoration Pilot Project was to restore eelgrass habitat through the development and implementation of a pilot landowner education and incentive program to update and replace improperly designed mooring buoys impacting eelgrass beds. The project worked with mooring buoy installers, boating organizations and public and private individual mooring buoy owners to relocate, replace or remove buoys and floats from priority nearshore habitat in San Juan County. Pilot project results have implications for restoration and management science, policy and outreach efforts locally and regionally and communication will occur with the San Juan County Marine Resources Committee as well as permit agencies.

project educated boaters and buoy installers on the importance of eelgrass and herring spawn habitats and reduced impacts to these priority habitats through remmoval or relocation of multiple buoys and floats.