Call for Nominations: ASBPA’s 2019 Best Restored Shores award nominations due July 12

ASBPA is excited to introduce the Best Restored Shores Award to recognize projects that enhance the environment, including low-energy or moderate-energy shorelines. Nominations for the inaugural 2019 awards will be accepted through July 12. The award-winning projects could include:

• Back bay projects
• Living shoreline projects (including large freshwater lakes)
• Beneficial use of dredge material for environmental projects
• Seagrass, shellfish, reef, and other submerged habitat projects
• Wetlands, mangroves, and other intertidal habitat and shoreline enhancement, restoration, or creation

ASBPA recognizes projects which address natural resource restoration to enhance shoreline resiliency by addressing environmental degradation, storm impacts, climate change, and sea level rise which all increasingly threatening the nation’s coastal, estuarine and Great Lakes communities. ASBPA understands the time, effort, and money that it takes to restore or enhance an inland or bay shoreline, and we want to recognize your accomplishments. Whether your project involves a Great Lake or an estuary, a mangrove or an oyster reef, if your project created thriving habitats, improve water quality, recreation and local economies you should apply to be a Best Restored Shores project.

“Continued public support for shore restoration is crucial to building coastal resiliency to storms and rising seas,” says Tony Pratt, ASBPA president. “Successfully planning and implementing shoreline restoration projects can be challenging and too often their far-reaching economic benefits go unnoticed.”

To these ends, ASBPA encourages nominations for new or established (e.g. constructed in the last three years) projects for the inaugural 2019 Best Restored Shores Award. Nominations must be submitted electronically to Bestrestoredshores@asbpa.org by July 12. The nomination text must be in MS Word, WordPerfect, or PDF format, and photos must be saved in JPEG or TIF formats. All applicants must include in their nomination package the following information to ensure a complete application:

1. Nominator’s contact information (name, address, phone, fax, email).
2. The name and contact information for the nominee’s public affairs specialist who will be coordinating with the media for press releases, etc.
3. Project location map.
4. The name of the project manager and the construction contractor. If consulting firms were used in the design and/or permitting, provide the consulting firm’s principal scientist, biologist, ecologist or and/or engineer as appropriate.
5. Project narrative, including the following:
6. Effectiveness and Purpose. Describe the primary objective(s) of the project and any secondary objectives. Discuss how effective the project is in meeting both primary and any secondary goals?
7. Design features including constraints and challenges. The nominee should provide a comprehensive description of the design. Identify the issues influencing design.
8. Construction Methods. The nominee should provide a comprehensive description of, construction methods. Projects with innovative design and construction methods that were effective and able to meet project’s purposes will be favored.
9. Funding. Describe the funding sources and how any obstacles or hurdles were overcome. Projects with public / private partnerships and monitoring to document project performance success will be favored.
10. Several professional-quality color photographs of the restored beach with release (tourist development councils and local resorts are good sources for photos of this quality). Include before and after restoration photographs.
11. A statement about why you consider this shoreline a best restored shore in the United States. (It is important to let the Committee know that you are passionate about your project and that the restoration project was a benefit to the shoreline habitat).
12. Quantified outcomes (benefits resulting from the successfully executed project) are especially helpful.
13. If available, please include historical data for the restored shoreline or area.

Winners will be notified in advance and ASBPA will prepare press releases to notify the media of the winner. Winners must agree to provide press releases to their local media and arrange for a representative to be present at the 2019 ASBPA National Coastal Conference in Myrtle Beach, SC, to accept the award.

All materials submitted will become property of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and will not be returned.