Spring Project to Allow Saltwater Flow into Cox Hall Creek

TOWN BANK — A project to bring saltwater flow into Cox Hall Creek is set to begin in the spring.
While there have been various proposals throughout the past decade to use inflow of water from Delaware Bay to kill phragmities reeds in Cox Hall Creek, this project has been scaled back from earlier plans.
The county applied for a $4 million federal grant when stimulus money first became available and was turned down, according to Brian O’Connor, a Geographic Information Systems Specialist with the county Planning Department.
“We had to scale back to what was reasonable,” he said.
O’Connor said a 48-inch diameter pipe will come from about 80-feet out into the bay into a two-way tide gate that will be buried in the dune that will connect to pipe going into Cox Hall Creek adjacent to the old pump house. The new pipe will bypass the old sewage pump house.
Funding was not available to place a larger culvert under Clubhouse Drive as originally proposed, said O’Connor. He said the county would seek funding for that phase of the project in the future.
O’Connor said the tide gate will allow control of the height of the water in the basin, west of Clubhouse Drive, to within an inch. The saltwater inflow from the bay was projected to cover about 87 acres of the creek, he said.
The small pipe under Clubhouse Drive will restrict some of the saltwater flow, said O’Connor.
Lower Township Manager Kathy McPherson said Ducks Unlimited is proving funding for materials to create a better habitat for wildlife and kill phragmities by opening up the channels to the natural flow of saltwater from the bay. She said it is also hoped it would address some flooding problems in North Cape May and Town Bank.
A total of 16 inlets from storm sewers flow into Cox Hall Creek.
McPherson said the project is a partnership between the county, U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Ducks Unlimited.
She said the township and the state Department of Environmental Protection would be able to close the tide gate as needed especially when a heavy rain event was forecast.
A concern for property owners adjacent to Cox Hall Creek raised at public meetings was the possibility of their drinking water wells becoming salty when water from the bay is let into the creek. Lower Township Municipal Utilities Authority will be bringing municipal water to the Town Bank area over the next five years.
In the fall of 1999, a fire broke out in the Cox Hall Creek area which could have endangered homes. The fire, which was fed by dried out phragmities, was contained by a large contingent of fire fighters.
Another benefit of the introduction of saltwater into the now freshwater marsh would be fewer mosquitoes, Cox Hall Creek Focus Group Chairman Lee Spruell told the Herald in 2008.
Once upon a time, Cox Hall Creek was a salt marsh where salt hay was grown, he said. The MUA turned a portion of Cox Hall Creek to freshwater in order to send treated sewage through the creek for dumping in Delaware Bay many years ago.