Upper Newport Bay Eelgrass Restoration Project

Location: Orange County

Project Type: Restoration

Status: Completed

Habitat Type: coastal wetland

Date Completed: 2015

Cost: $156,000

Area Affected: 1 acres

Assembly District: 74

Senate District: 37

Project Lead/Grantee:
Orange County Coastkeeper

This project restored 1.417 acres of eelgrass adjacent to the newly restored habitat in the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve.

While the main goal of the project was to restore eelgrass throughout its historical range in Upper Newport Bay, researchers also developed and tested effective, innovative, and cost-effective strategies of restoring and managing this important sea grass habitat, and determined the most successful method of planting was bare-root bundling.