The Great Cypress Swamp is located in the southernmost portion of Sussex County, Delaware.  Blanketing over 13,000 acres, it is the largest remaining tract of contiguous forest on the Delmarva Peninsula and is one of its most unique wetland resources.  Sadly, while portions of the Great Cypress Swamp are still partially inundated during wet years, its natural hydrology has been dramatically altered.  A vast network of drainage ditches excavated to accommodate agriculture and timber harvest have disrupted complex drainage patterns and diminished both the extent and ecological function of the area.

Several years’ worth of concerted effort culminated in the 2009 restoration of 426 acres in the Great Cypress Swamp.  Delaware Wild Lands (DWL), which owns and manages over 11,000 acres there, joined forces with Ducks Unlimited (DU), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Delaware Bay Estuary Project and Partners for Fish and Wildlife, Center for the Inland Bays, and others to strategically install six water control structures and five ditch plugs aimed at retaining outflow and lengthening the hydroperiod, thus effectively rewetting vast portions of the Great Cypress Swamp.

But their work didn’t stop there.  DWL and others planted more than 33,000 Atlantic white cedars, which have declined significantly and are identified as a “Habitat of Conservation Concern” in the Delaware Wildlife Action Plan.  Furthermore, DU spearheaded submission of a North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA) grant in 2009 which proposes a similar restoration on an adjacent 343 acres.  With support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Center for the Inland Bays, and others, DU and DWL are committed to the long-term restoration of the Great Cypress Swamp to improve water quality and wildlife habitat.

Water control structures like this one installed during the 2009 Great Cypress Swamp restoration will anable landowners to hold water in ditches longer, thereby establishing a more natural hydrologic regime.