Eldora State House Shoreline Restoration Event

Dr. Linda Walters and her research lab, called the Coastal and Estuary Ecology Lab (CEELAB), will be hosting a community shoreline restoration event on June 15, 2013 in Canaveral National SeaShore to prevent further erosion and potential damage to the Eldora State House. The house was built in the late 1800s when most transport was by steamship in Florida. It is now a treasured museum within the National Park that is very close to the shoreline of Mosquito Lagoon. Erosion is a prevalent issue along Florida’s coastlines, exacerbated by wakes from boat traffic and severe weather. The depletion of sand can lead to habitat loss for many native species, as well as property damage to our cultural treasures. In this case, super storm Sandy took away a lot of the shoreline in the fall of 2012, so this effort is quite urgent.

Her lab tries to host a few large, family-friendly community restoration events each year to allow all age volunteers the opportunity to assist in a coastal conservation project, see the damage associated with degradation of our shorelines, and get hands-on experience with our erosion reduction methods. They will deploy stabilized oyster shell, as well as plant mangroves and marshgrass on the coastline adjacent to the historic Eldora house on this day, with the help of approximately 300 volunteers, ranging in age from about 2 to 92.