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Innovative Approaches to Funding Living Shoreline Projects
Wednesday, August 28, 2024 - 3:00 p.m.-4:30 p.m. EDT 
NAWM MEMBERS' ONLY WEBINAR
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PRESENTERS
- Kayla Clauson, Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control
- Sarah Koser, Chesapeake Bay Trust
ABSTRACTS
Kayla Clauson
Enhancing Coastal Resiliency: Delaware's Living Shoreline Cost Share Program
Delaware as a low-lying, coastal plain state tends to feel the ramifications of climate change, sea level rise, and shoreline erosion like other states across the east coast. A proven effective way to help mitigate some of these effects is the installment of living shorelines. Living shorelines are a shoreline stabilization technique that utilize natural materials and native plants to protect wetlands, filter pollutants, improve water quality, and help the land-water continuum for animals to access important breeding/nursery habitat. Many organizations with capacity and expertise (i.e., Non-profit organizations) have the means to acquire various funding to implement large-scale living shoreline restoration projects. However, there is a disconnect between funding opportunities between formalized organizations and the public, who reside along our beloved waterways. To fill this gap, Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control hosts a Living Shoreline Cost Share Program. The program offers financial assistance to singular landowners and/or Homeowner Associations who are looking to install living shorelines on their properties that are facing erosion. The goal is to increase coastal resilience by incentivizing waterfront landowners to install sustainable shoreline stabilization techniques. In this presentation I will discuss the logistics of the cost share program, how it works, project criteria, and challenges, including lessons learned so far.
Sarah T. Koser
In the early 2000's, the Chesapeake Bay Trust, with support from several federal and state agencies saw a need to move the living shoreline practice forward in terms of landowner acceptance, contractor design and construction knowledge, regulatory approval, and implementation for practices that look natural and function as intended. Our dedicated living shoreline grant program was successful for over 10 years (2004 through 2014) to pool resources and knowledge that implemented nearly 100 living shoreline projects in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and improved knowledge for installing living shorelines. Since then, the landscape has changed to include an approved pollutant load reduction credit for living shorelines per the USEPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office's expert panel process, acceptance for softer approaches like living shorelines, and regulatory frameworks that promote and allow living shorelines (e.g., Maryland Living Shoreline Protection Act of 2008). We currently fund living shoreline design and implementation projects in our grant programs, but we see a current need for resurrecting a dedicated living shoreline grant program in Maryland to pilot innovative ideas, to "train up" new contractors and managers entering the field, to employ new technologies, and to ensure we are promoting sustainable shoreline management efforts in our watershed.
BIOS
Kayla Clauson is an Environmental Scientist with Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, within the Division of Watershed Stewardship. She works with wetlands, is the point of contact for the Living Shoreline Cost Share Program and runs the state’s Submerged Aquatic Vegetation efforts. Kayla holds degrees in Marine Sciences (B.S.) and Marine Conservation and Policy (M.A.) and has a variety of environmental and habitat monitoring experience, spanning from the tropics (Caribbean) to New England (Narragansett Bay).
Sarah Koser is a Program Manager for Restoration at the Chesapeake Bay Trust (Trust). Ms. Koser leads several large restoration grant programs for the Chesapeake Bay Trust, including the Anne Arundel County Watershed Restoration program and the Maryland Department of the Environment Nontidal Wetlands program as well as the US EPA Goal Implementation Team (GIT) Funding Program and manages the US EPA Tidal Wetlands Capacity Building Grant. These award programs support restoration and engagement goals for the Chesapeake Bay, state(s), and municipalities. Before joining the Trust, she was a Senior Scientist for EA Engineering, Science, and Technology, Inc., PBC, where she worked for nearly 20 years. Specific work-related experience at EA included habitat restoration, wetland delineation and function assessment, report writing of wetland field activities and wetland impacts, conducting submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) surveys, and conducting stream assessments for potential restoration. Other experience included conducting rare, threatened, and endangered (RTE) plant species surveys; habitat and vegetation identification and mapping; and plant identification to species level. Ms. Koser holds a MS in Environmental Engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Biology/Botany from Pennsylvania State University. Ms. Koser is a Board-Certified Environmental Scientist (BCES), through the American Academy of Environmental Engineers & Scientists, a Professional Wetland Scientist (PWS), through the Society for Wetland Scientists, and is a Certified Ecological Restoration Professional (CERP), through the Society for Ecological Restoration; she has been at the Trust for five years. Ms. Koser enjoys attending the Natural History Society of Maryland’s Lepidoptera Club, volunteering at Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary to monitor the vernal pools each spring, and finding native orchids on hikes all over the U.S.
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