MAINE MONITOR • July 28, 2024
It takes hundreds of years for a salt marsh to form. As salt-tolerant plants grow, their dense stems and roots trap more sediment, and the marsh builds more rapidly. Acre by acre, a healthy salt marsh anchors a food web “more productive than most midwestern farmland,” according to UMaine. The same dense grasses that are good at trapping silt also excel at ensnaring pollutants, pulling out nitrogen and nutrients that cause algal blooms, and burying toxic contaminants in the peat. For much of American history, the marsh has been considered more of an impediment than an asset; something to be filled, ditched, dug and bulldozed. More than half of the wetlands that existed at the start of the Revolutionary War are gone. Development in and near marshes affects their ability to function or adjust to rising seas. “The real question is, are [marshes] going to be able to keep up with the amount of sea level rise that we’re expecting to see over the next 50 or 100 years?”