Articles

• Balancing Resources with Sustainability
• 10 Questions on Nature Tourism
• COSEE:CGOM Workshop Brings Researchers, Teachers Together
• What's Coming... Research Projects of 2008
• Regional Project Funding
• Featured Publication
• From the Director

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Valerie Winn

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8840
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 07-011-03

Balancing Resources with Sustainability

Dauphin Island's Strategic Plan Outlines Its Future

In leading the small island community of Dauphin Island, Ala., through the 21st century, its citizens have enacted a strategic plan that will ensure a future of economic and societal well-being. The plan, supported in large by Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC), capitalizes on the island’s history, culture and natural resources.

Over the past 10 months, residents participated in surveys, workshops, Internet programming and conversations to identify the important focus areas and strategic actions that will move the community toward sustainability.“We’re real excited about it,” said Mayor Jeff Collier. “We’re most proud of the way we went about it. We put together a steering committee. We were very open in getting public input. We had over 900 responses.”

Major areas identified for potential improvement included community development, environmental protection, economic improvement, unified governance and means for capitalizing on the island’s cultural assets and tourism/recreational resources.

For help in identifying the goals outlined in the strategic plan, the town has contracted with Five E’s Unlimited, a consulting firm in Seattle, Wash., that specializes in sustainable environmental and economic development. The consulting team, in turn, was guided in its design of the strategic planning process by the questions developed by the plan’s steering committee of island residents. The result is a 56-page report of implementations and recommendations.

“Among the first things to be addressed are the central business district and the working waterfront,” said Collier, adding that residents of the neighborhoods are researching these topics with technical support provided by MASGC through a grant to Auburn University’s Michael Robinson in the Department of Landscape Architecture.“It’s real important at this point to get that going. We need more restaurants to get the economic engines running again and to get the tourists coming.”

In addition to providing an unprecedented $60,000 through its program development grant program, MASGC has been instrumental in the process by meeting with town government officials to provide them with information on the value of having a strategic plan over an updated comprehensive plan. MASGC also provided facilitation from staff and National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) colleagues during the post-Hurricane Katrina charettes and participated on the steering committee. In another effort, the MASGC Legal Program conducted an evaluation of the local ordinances to determine how compatible they are with Smart Growth principles.

Other grant funds for the strategic plan were awarded by The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, State Lands Division and the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program.

In beginning this journey of longterm strategic action, the community identified 12 short-term, priority actions that could be implemented over the next year to seed the transition to sustainable community development. One of them is to design and implement, with assistance from MASGC, a study to evaluate the cost-benefit analysis of alternative protection plans for the island’s west end.

Collier, a lifetime resident who was born on the island and has been mayor for ten years, has more than a vested interest in the project. “I’m the only official left from when the town was incorporated in 1988,” he said, adding that he has witnessed many changes over the years. But some things, he said, have remained unchanged. Before he served as mayor, Collier was a Dauphin Island Town Council member for 10 years. His extensive knowledge and appreciation of the area are valuable assets. “I think one of the best things about Dauphin Island is that you can basically get away from civilization here,” he said. “People like to come here because of what we don’t have.”

In spite of a unified push for improvement, challenges lie ahead. “The toughest challenge is shoreline stabilization,” said Collier. “There’s no cheap, easy fix. It will be an ongoing situation with the actual eroding away of the land. Being a barrier island, we’re losing land. As far as the strategic plan—it is very rich with preserving the charm of the island, but we need growth and development. There has to be a balance. How do we balance it and be progressive enough that we can sustain ourselves economically, socially and environmentally?”

In recognizing a deep concern for environmental responsibility, the effects of recent natural disasters such as Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Katrina (2005) and the need for sustainable development, the citizens’ have relied on their collective wisdom. “For the most part, everyone is thinking in terms of planning ahead instead of making repairs,” said Town Council member Carolyn Wood, who added that recent major storms have knocked them for a loop. “Our comprehensive plan is seven years old. We needed to project further than five years—not only for disaster planning, but for the vision of the island.”