Assateague Island has long been the sight of wild ponies and stretches of sandy beaches. Conservation Conversations with Lauren Imhof provides this audio portrait of this unique landscape.
RUSSO: Shifting sands and wild horses sound right out of a fairytale. But for anyone who's ever been to Assateague Island, that's just a regular spring season. I'm Bryan Russo. Officially declared a national seashore in 1965, Assateague Island is shaped by seasonal storms and the people trying to preserve it. In this episode of Conservation Conversations, Lauren Imhof discovers what makes this ever-changing island so special.
IMHOF: At the Visitor Center on Assateague Island, you'll find educational exhibits including a display about storms. Lower shore locals seem to understand that aite and its storms go hand in hand, but I wondered why.
COFFEY: To talk about storms and the island, first we have to understand what the island is.
IMHOF: This is Ruth Coffey. She's a coastal geologist with Assateague Island National Seashore, the national park side of the island. For her role, she assesses how this loose sand moves.
COFFEY: The island, Assateague is a barrier island, we have many barrier islands all along the eastern coast and the Gulf Coast, and it is a pile of sand that over time have accumulated just offshore of the mainland. But it's sand, it's loose sand, and the sand moves very easily. Storms are actually a really vital part of the dynamics of a barrier island. So one of those things about moving sand... [it] doesn't move to the bay side of the island without a really big rise in sea level from a storm.
IMHOF: These are called "Overwash events." They help build bay side shores while letting the island take the brunt of the storm's energy From tourist spots to mainland protection, Assateague seems to be essential to preserve, but how can park staff even begin to preserve an island that's constantly moving?
COFFEY: Preservation isn't quite the right word because one of the important parts of
barrier islands is their dynamic nature. So our job here is to ensure the dynamics are preserved, so that includes accepting changes in that island. So the shoreline position moves as weather conditions change. As seasons change, that shoreline grows and shrinks with the changes in energy from the ocean. And so our job is really to preserve the processes as well as the features.
IMHOF: Conserving these natural processes helps the mainland weather intense storms, including the one that pushed people to get serious about initially protecting this land.
FEHRER: There's a famous photograph of a fellow William Green, who's leaning up against a street sign almost knee deep in water days after that storm. That's what caught the interest of the federal government, particularly the state also, but the federal government particularly, to look to purchase Assateague as a national seashore.
IMHOF: Meet Joe Fehrer [Jr.], a retiree from the Nature Conservancy who lived on Assateague in his youth. Here, he is talking about the Ash Wednesday storm of 1962, an extreme nor'easter that decimated the East Coast.
FEHRER: A few years later, 1965. Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time, signed a legislation that enabled the National Park Service to begin the purchase of Assateague as part of the National Seashore System.
IMHOF: In my conversation with Joe, we talked about how this island constantly changes. Both Joe and Ruth understand that there's a certain sadness that comes with places we love changing. But thanks to these dynamics, every day on a barrier island is a chance for something new. New beaches, new views, and a new adventure filled with memories to last a lifetime. With Delmarva Public Media, I'm Lauren Imhof.
RUSSO: Conservation Conversations is a partnership between Delmarva Public Media and the Lower Shore Land Trust. To learn more, visit lowershorelandtrust.org or delmarvapublicmedia.org.
