After over 10 years of fundraising, planning, and construction part of the Texas Rookery Islands Project, the Dressing Point Island Restoration Project (DPIRP), has been completed.

After the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010, money was paid by British Petroleum Oil Company, via the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, to cover damages to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) which used a Natural Resource Damage Assessment.  This money was divided between Gulf states and was applied to projects that were proposed to protect or restore coastal natural resources in the GOM.

The Texas Rookery Islands Project includes projects to restore colonial waterbird nesting habitat at four locations including Dickinson Bay, Rollover Bay, Smith Point, and Dressing Point Island (DPI). DPI is in East Matagorda Bay and is part of the 5,000-acre Big Boggy National Wildlife Refuge.

DPI was originally part of Dressing Point Peninsula which eroded and created the island due to storms, boats, ships, natural waves, sea level rise, and coastal subsidence.  Since 1988, DPI shrunk from 28 acres to 4 acres.  The DPIRP increases the size of DPI to 12 acres.

DPI used to have 10,000-pairs of nesting colonial waterbirds.  This number dropped to 5,000 pairs of birds.  Now that the DPIRP has been completed the number of nesting colonial waterbird pairs should climb significantly.

Besides the provision of colonial waterbird nesting habitat, the DPIRP provides a protected lagoon between the breakwater and the island which improves water quality.  The breakwater rock is made of limestone and attracts oysters and mussels, which attach to the breakwater, and stone crabs.  It is hoped that the clearer, quieter, water will allow seagrasses to grow in the lagoon next to DPI.

The DPIRP cost $10.5 million.  It includes the construction of a three-sided 3,399 linear foot breakwater to slowdown island erosion, fill to raise the island’s profile 5 feet, and planting of native shrubs, trees, and other vegetation for colonial waterbird nesting habitat.

Those who contributed to the funding, planning, or construction of the DPIRP include Ducks Unlimited, Texas General Land Office, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Matagorda Bay Mitigation Trust, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service.