DEAL ISLAND, Md. — Marsh along the southwestern side of Deal Island is slowly being eaten away by shoreline erosion — and a new state grant is aiming to stop it.
Maryland's Department of Natural Resources awarded $4.5 million in grants for four shoreline protection projects in Somerset County. One of those projects targets Deal Island, where funding will go toward designing a living shoreline to protect nearly 78 acres of marsh at risk of disappearing into the Chesapeake Bay.
Living shorelines use nature-based methods — like marsh plantings — to stabilize eroding land rather than relying on hardened structures like bulkheads. There is already one on part of the island.
Roy Ford runs his crabbing operation just a few hundred yards from the shore. He said the erosion has been an ongoing problem — and that one living shoreline is not enough.
"We definitely need more. We need more of it. We have probably a good mile stretch that probably needs to be, you know, addressed as well from, you know, from the erosion from the impacts of, you know, these west northwest storms, even a southwest storm," Ford said.
For Ford, protecting the marsh goes beyond the land itself — it is about survival on an island where flooding is a constant reality.
"Flooding is certainly, it's part — it's a part of life here on the island, you know, especially when we get into summer months and into the fall, the year," he said.
Homeowner Erin Pelletier has felt the erosion firsthand. She has planted sea grass at her own property just to keep up with it — and said she supports the project.
"I think that's such a great idea. If we could have afforded a living shoreline at our own house, like, we would have definitely gone that way. But we already had a working bulkhead, so, I love the idea of a living shoreline. I think it's probably one of the best ways to keep the land from eroding so much," Pelletier said.
She also said she hopes a new living shoreline will help restore some of what has been lost in the water around the island.
"I really love the idea of another living shoreline because I think it will help bring, like, more oysters and more life because when we are on the water, we can see that there's sometimes not a lot of fish, sometimes that we're not catching a lot of crab right off of our dock," Pelletier said.
The grant currently funds only the design phase. Construction funding would still need to be secured before any work begins in the water.
