1 of 3
2 of 3
The $3.6 million project includes an elevated wooden walkway for hotel guests and visitors to cross from one side of the resort to the other over water.
3 of 3
Together, they will form an 18,000-square-foot “living shoreline” designed to stabilize and protect the Irvington resort’s property; offer a habitat for diverse vegetation, birds and aquatic life; and filter excess nitrogen—often linked to fertilizer runoff and solid waste—from water.
The shoreline “will be a showpiece for conservation and clean water,” predicts Anne Self, Lower Rappahannock River steward with Friends of the Rappahannock, an environmental group working with local partners to clean Carter’s Creek, a tributary of both the river and the Chesapeake Bay estuary. “It will go a long way towards meeting regional water quality goals.”
The $3.6 million project, ongoing this spring and summer, will include an elevated wooden walkway for hotel guests and visitors to cross from one side of the resort to the other over water. The curving observation path will have signs identifying species that call the area home.
Tides Inn staff is planning new interactive waterfront programs to educate adults and children on sustainability and conservation. Students might learn to bait a crab pot to catch Chesapeake Bay blue crabs, for instance, or how to forage for edible plants. Or they might explore the magic of a single oyster, which can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.
“This is one of the biggest living shorelines I’ve ever seen built,” says Will Smiley, resident ecologist at the Tides Inn. “The original question of, ‘How do we protect our real estate?’ has turned into creating this huge living, breathing classroom. This is a development project that works with nature, not against it.”
Plant and tree roots can protect shorelines from erosion just like manmade materials, Smiley explains. New wetland and upland grasses and plants will be native to Carter’s Creek, such as cordgrass and hibiscus. Native species require little maintenance, as they are well adapted to local rainfall
patterns and soils. The project also will add bald cypress trees, indigenous to swampy areas but now fairly endangered in Virginia, and protect an old-growth chestnut and oak grove on a nearby bluff.
Vegetation and oyster reefs should boost the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation, another effective water filter, as more sunlight can penetrate clearer water. And oyster reefs are valuable shelters for hundreds of marine species.
An environment already filled with blue crabs, oysters and more than 3,000 migratory and wildlife species, then, could see some new additions. That would be good news, because the more diverse an ecosystem, the more stable it tends to be in the long term.
“If you provide a structure, nature will use it as a home,” Smiley notes. “We’re building a bigger habitat for more species to use. For example, there’s a lined seahorse in the Chesapeake Bay that needs really good water quality to live. I would be very excited if we see them come here.”
Smiley joined the Tides Inn staff in January, moving from a temporary job as an oyster farmer on the Rappahannock. He has a master’s in Education for Sustainability degree from Antioch University in New Hampshire and was a field educator for Christchurch School, a boarding program near Urbanna, for 17 years and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation for five.
Sustainable development is a balance of people, planet and profit: promoting wellness in humans and nature and producing revenue. The new shoreline should check all three boxes, says Marston Smith, director of development and capital planning at the Tides Inn.
“We envision local schools coming and spending an afternoon there,” Smith relates. “Anyone can come in for walks and educational programs. It’s really about improving the health of our whole community.”
The project should be complete by late summer or early fall of this year, Smith adds, although new programming might begin before then. The resort, a town centerpiece since 1947, will host a public event in June to plant wetland vegetation.
“We want to deepen people’s connection to our land, shorelines and water,” Smiley says. “My goal is for each and every guest to leave with a sense of urgency to take care of the environment in their own communities.”
To follow or to learn more about the sustainability initiatives at the Tides Inn in Irvington, go to TidesInn.com/sustainability.