Center for Inland Bays seeks support

Standing just outside his office at the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays on a sunny but chilly spring afternoon April 9, Christophe Tulou looked out across the Indian River Inlet.

It is a peaceful setting, but Tulou, the center’s executive director, worries that a storm is coming – and he is getting ready.

He is accustomed to dealing with the growing risks the bays face from a changing environment, pollution and development. But there is also a new threat blowing in from the nation’s capital.

With $1.6 million in federal grants – which cover about 85% of the center’s payroll and capital project costs – in jeopardy during federal budget slashing, Tulou is seeking support to bridge the gap.

“We need people with muscle, we need people with commitment, and we’re talking about the county on the one hand and we’re talking about the state on another,” Tulou said. “We’re in a bit of a problem in terms of that partnership at the federal level. So the question really is, do we care enough about this place that’s ours to make up for the federal government that may decide to sit down while we need to stand up?”

Tulou related the center’s predicament during an April 8 Sussex Preservation Coalition meeting at the Lewes Public Library, saying his group will have to lean more heavily on state and county support, grants and and donors. 

“We have the interest, we have the capacity and we have the desire,” he said. “So my goal is to build that up, and if we need to, re-create the Center for the Inland Bays. Forget about what the federal expectations were, and do it because of what we as a community want. I’m all in, then, for that.”

Jill Hicks, Sussex Preservation Coalition president, said her group will help support the work of the center. Thirty percent of the revenue from the coalition’s Green Gala, scheduled for Wednesday, May 14, will be given to the Center for the Inland Bays.

Sussex County Councilwoman Jane Gruenebaum attended the coalition’s April 8 meeting and afterward said she would ask the council, as it prepares its annual budget, to support the center.

Delaware is the lowest-lying state in the country, so it’s vulnerable to flooding and other storm effects, Tulou said. The Inland Bays face threats from a changing environment, he said.

“Mother Nature is conspiring against us,” he said. “She’s moving the goalposts. If you look out over the watershed in particular places, you’ll notice the marshes are disappearing; they’re drowning. The water levels are rising. The storms are getting fiercer. The shorelines are eroding.”

The Delaware Center for the Inland Bays is one of 28 estuary programs in the nation. It encompasses about 400 square miles.

A group of 373 volunteers helps the center do its work of protecting, preserving and restoring the natural environment, habitats and species – including humans, Tulou said.

The CIB works on open space preservation and reforestation projects, restoring wildlife habitats, encouraging improved shoreline stabilization methods, supporting shellfish farming in the bays and creating concrete reefs to support oyster growth. 

It is also studying horseshoe crab, eagle and osprey populations to determine the effects of pollution on them. The center recently completed building an educational facility at the 150-acre James Farm Ecological Preserve near Bethany Beach, where children will be educated about the Inland Bays.

The state created the Center for  the Inland Bays in 1994. As the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control secretary at the time, Tulou was named to the center’s original board. He was hired as executive director two years ago. 

“There is something else that a lot of people don’t realize about our bays and our watershed,” Tulou said. “We support about $4.5 billion a year in economic activity in this community.”

Estuary programs also offer a good return on investment, he said. 

“For every dollar of federal funding that we receive, as a family of estuary programs around the country, we find 17 additional dollars to leverage that dollar of federal spending,” Tulou said. “This is federal efficiency, folks.”