Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The Center for Sustainable Design at Mississippi State is receiving $100,000 from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers to provide landscape design and vegetation for restoring 26 miles of hurricane-damaged coastal beach in Harrison County.
Landscape architect professor Pete Melby, the university center's co-founder, said the contract supports a project designed to prevent erosion, keep sand off adjacent highways and provide areas for entertainment, wildlife observation and conservation.
"The sand beach is a very important asset for Harrison County and the tourist industry," Melby said. "Our plan will help provide for restoration of the beach so it will be at its best as more tourists begin to come back to the area."
He said the project will be comprehensive, improving the quality of both upper and lower parts of the beach to benefit, respectively, human recreation and, through the use of marsh grasses and shrubs, nature habitats.
The Center for Sustainable Design has a long history of working in the coastal region, a major factor in its selection for the contract.
"In 1995, we were given responsibility for a three-acre section of beach," Melby said. "Along with the Biloxi Bay Chamber of Commerce and state Department of Marine Resources, we developed an experimental beach with limited mechanical maintenance and lots of native plant establishment. As a result, edge erosion was stopped."
The center's 2009 plan of action will be similar to those used in previous successful projects. It will be centered on an innovative planting approach known as deep planting irrigation using sea oats germinated in the MSU Seed Technology Laboratory.
Melby said sea oats "will be grown to four-inch cells and planted 10-inches deep to the natural moisture level of the soil, which provides for more vigorous growth and hardier root system."
Re-establishing shrubbery and sea oats in the upper area of the beach will help create sand dunes and prevent the wind from carrying the sand away and eroding the beach front, he explained.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For additional information on the coast project, contact Melby at 662-325-3012 or pm@ra.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.