NATIONAL
ESTUARY
PROGRAM
RIVER HERRING HABITAT RESTORATION
The Albemarle Sound accounts for the majority of river herring landings in all of North Carolina. However, blueback herring and alewife, collectively known
as "river herring," are facing record declines across the Albemarle Sound watershed due to loss of access to spawning and nursery habitats, fishery pres-
sures, and declining water quality. Decreasing steadily since the 1970s (all across the East Coast), the State Commission of the North Carolina Marine
Fisheries recently declared a no-harvest rule for river herring for commercial and recreational fishing, with the exclusion of up to 7,500 pounds, which can
be caught exclusively for research purposes.
THE NATIONAL ESTUARY PROGRAM IN ACTION
Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program
To help bring river herring back
to their former abundance, the
Albemarle-Pamlico National Es-
tuary Program (APNEP) and
many partners are taking a coor-
dinated approach to carrying out
the initial steps to river herring
recovery. Having worked indi-
vidually in the past to rebuild
spawning stock size, protect
spawning and nursery area hab-
itats, and maintain good water
quality in North Carolina's coast-
al streams, several entities have
joined together to integrate their
plans and benefit from the vari-
ety of tools each has to offer.
The Basinwide Management
Plan addresses water quality is-
sues. The Coastal Habitat Pro-
tection Plan and Wildlife Action
Plan aim to protect and restore
necessary fish habitats, while
the River Herring Fishery Man-
agement Plan addresses sus-
tainable fishing issues.
APNEP is collaborating with
those and many others to meet
the goals of its Comprehensive
Conservation and Management
Plan, which includes actions to
address the issues of degraded
or lost herring habitat. In a most
recent and ongoing project,
APNEP assisted the North Caro-
lina Division of Marine Fisheries
(DMF) in developing a herring
sample analysis program to
monitor water quality and its ef-
fect on herring in the Chowan
and Roanoke rivers. Since river
herring are currently managed
under a no-harvest provision,
DMF has established an alterna-
tive sampling method in order to
continue to sample the river her-
ring population in the Chowan
River.
With funding from APNEP, DMF
has contracted commercial fish-
ermen to set and fish pound nets
in the Chowan River to obtain
river herring data and aging
samples. The sampling is de-
signed to collect the same type
of biological data that was eval-
uated from the commercial har-
Sorting of a pound net catch from the Chowan River, NC.
Photo Credit: North Carolina Division of Marine Rsheries
vest. APNEP is also working
with the Environmental Defense
Fund (EOF) by funding a multi-
phase project to assess river
herring habitat and map priority
areas for restoration. The EOF
designed a GIS-based model to
identify and prioritize spawning
and nursery habitat for river her-
ring in the Chowan River Basin,
including two sub-watersheds.
They also incorporated indica-
tors to assess and prioritize
restoration and protection op-
portunities based on current
hydrologic regimen conditions
EFFECTIVE
EFFICIENT
ADAPTIVE
COLLABORATIVE
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and nutrient loadings, including
the effect of land-use changes
on hydrology and nutrient load-
ing, an increase in drainage net-
works through stream channel-
ization and ditching, and point
sources of pollution from Na-
tional Pollutant Discharge Elimi-
nation System (NPDES) permit-
ted facilities and animal feeding
operations.
Outside the Chowan River area,
additional evaluation is taking
place in the tributaries of a
neighboring river basin to deter-
mine the model's effectiveness
in watersheds with different hy-
drogeomorphic characteristics.
Overall, this work is providing
the missing information that is
essential to developing a long-
term management plan that
meets conservation planning ef-
forts and actions contained in
APNEP's Comprehensive Con-
servation and Management Plan.
One of the more immediate ben-
efits of the project is that it has
been helpful in generating
matching funds to purchase 200
targeted acres containing es-
sential river herring habitat. For
example, the research presented
so far has helped EOF to acquire
a 94-acre tract of high-quality
bottomland hardwood wetlands
located in the Chowan River Core
Wetland Reserve.
North Carolina Division of Parks
and Recreation manages the
land and is currently developing
a management plan for the prop-
erty, which buffers Bennett's
Creek—suitable spawning habi-
tat for river herring and neotropi-
cal migratory bird species.
APNEP is also developing a com-
prehensive assessment method-
ology for wetland functionality
as the basis for setting goals for
wetland extent and condition.
The program would support
a multitude of possible projects,
be used to prioritize short-term
actions, and be an integral part
of the long-term implementation
plans for state and Federal
resource management in the
region.
Visit www.apnep.org to learn
more about this and other
APNEP efforts.
EPA's National Estuary Program
(NEP) is a unique and successful
coastal watershed-based program
established in 1987 under the
Clean Water Act Amendments.
The NEP involves the public and
collaborates with partners to pro-
tect, restore, and maintain the wa-
ter quality and ecological integrity
of 28 estuaries of national signifi-
cance located in 18 coastal states
and Puerto Rico.
For more information about the
NEP go to www.epa.gov/owow/
estuaries.
The NEP: Implementing the Clean Water Act in ways that are Effective, Efficient, Adaptive, and Collaborative.
EPA-842F09001
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