Election Results

Thank you to all our candidates who ran in this year’s election and thank you to all who voted.  Also a big thank you to our Board of Election and Poll Workers who made the election possible.  Harry Ward and Rebecca Craft Ed.d will serve two year terms.  Below are the results:

Harry Ward – 132 Votes

Rebecca W. Craft Ed.d – 93 Votes

Patricia Catazariti – 47 Votes

Kathy McFadden

Town Clerk

Resilient Community Day Public Workshop

Resilient Community Day Public Workshop

Saturday, July 22, 2017 at 10:00 am at the Slaughter Beach Fire Hall

Learn how the Town of Slaughter Beach can manage risks from flooding and extreme heat. Prepare today for tomorrow’s hazards!

Find out how the Resilient Community Partnership is improving the capacity to plan for and recover from hazardous events in Slaughter Beach.  Presentations will begin promptly at 10:00am. Buffet lunch will be provided! Prior registration not required.

Residents & stakeholders are invited to the Resilient Community Day to:

• Hear the results of the DNREC Delaware Coastal Programs’ Resilient Community Partnership study;
• Learn about the new flood warning system that will be installed on Cedar Beach Road and Slaughter Beach Road;
• Learn about emergency preparedness tips from subject matter experts from DelDot, DEMA, and DNREC; and
• Promote a safer, more prepared community that can bounce back from flooding and other hazardous events. 

Proud Parents

For the third year in a row, Dawn and Willy had eggs successfully hatch.  This year they have produced two chicks.  The chicks will be tagged short. 

 

 

Town of Slaughter Beach – Notice of Election

Town of Slaughter Beach  – Notice of Election
The election will be held on July 1, 2017, between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and
12:00 noon at the Slaughter Beach Memorial Volunteer Fire Company. The
candidates for Town Council are Patricia Catanzariti, Rebecca W. Craft,
Ed.D, and Harry R. Ward. To be qualified to vote, an individual must be a
citizen of the United States, be at least 18 years of age, and have been either
domiciled in Slaughter Beach or a freeholder (property owner) in Slaughter
Beach since June, 1, 2017.
An individual wishing to vote by absentee ballot must request an absentee
ballot by filing an affidavit of qualifications with the Town no later than 12:00
p.m. June 30 (which may be obtained by calling (302) 424-7659 or emailing
townofslaughterbeach@comcast.net. For those affidavits received prior to
12:00 p.m. on June 27, the Town will mail out absentee ballots. For affidavits
received after 12:00 p.m. on June 27, the individual filing the affidavit will be
responsible for picking up the absentee ballot from the Town in person.
Sussex County Tax records and Supplemental List of Property Owners will be
used to determine voter qualifications and can be reviewed:
 By visiting the town website http://slaughterbeachdelaware.gov.
 In person at the regular Council meeting held June 12, 2017.
 Anyone unable to review the Sussex County Property Tax records at
the time indicated above may verify that they are identified on the
records by calling (302) 424-7659 or emailing
townofslaughterbeach@comcast.net.
Anyone not on the Sussex County Property Tax records will need to provide
the town with proof of identity and proof of residence or ownership prior to
the date of election or on the date of election.

Shorebirds and Horseshoe Crabs

Haven’t been able to make it to the DuPont Nature Center located near Slaughter Beach, to see the arrival of shorebirds and horseshoe crabs? No worry, check out the Center’s live nature cam at the newly restored harbor beach.

Take a look at the restoration work in the harbor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WvwO3kjqtU

The second Saturday of the month is Storybook Saturday: storybook-saturday-sign

Thank you Milford Central Academy FFA chapter

A big thank you goes out to the Milford Central Academy FFA chapter who came out on Sunday May 21st to flip Horseshoe Crabs and pick up trash on the beach.  The crabs didn’t show up, but the kids did.  4 Horseshoe Crabs were put back into the bay and 60 pounds of trash was removed from the beach.  Trash/debris which washes up on shore is not only unsightly, but also harmful to marine life. The Town of Slaughter Beach thanks you as do the Horseshoe Crabs and other marine life you helped to protect.

Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival Saturday, May 20th, 2017

DuPont Nature Center presents Peace, Love and Horseshoe Crab Festival on Saturday May 20th from 10am to 3pm – rain or shine.  See the flyer for more details: 2017-plhsc-flyer

Feast on the Beach: The Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab Shorebird Connection

Shorebird and horseshoe crab connection highlighted in new film from the Delaware Shorebird Project

Feast on the Beach: The Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab Shorebird Connection film educates, entertains and encourages ecotourism

The Delaware Shorebird Project today premiered Feast on the Beach: The Delaware Bay Horseshoe Crab Shorebird Connection, a film produced to raise awareness and understanding about the ecological connection between horseshoe crabs and shorebirds migrating through the Delaware Bay area, as well as the researchers who study them. Every spring, hundreds of thousands of migrating shorebirds – including the threatened red knot – pass through Delaware’s central Bayshore region and neighboring New Jersey from areas as far away as southern South America on the way to their summer breeding grounds in the Arctic. The Delaware Bay is a crucial refueling stop, where the birds eat horseshoe crab eggs to build their fat reserves before continuing their journey.

“This new film highlights one of nature’s great partnerships that is unique to Delaware: the meeting of migratory shorebirds and spawning horseshoe crabs on our Delaware Bays beaches each spring,” said Governor Carney. “Possibly the First State’s largest eco-tourism event of the year, the spectacle they present contributes much to Delaware’s conservation economy, drawing scientists, researchers and wildlife watchers from all over the world to visit and enjoy our great state.”

Beginning in early May, hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs make their way toward the beaches of the Delaware Bay. At high tide, especially during the new and full moon, the females come ashore to lay a clutch of 2,000 to 4,000 grayish-green eggs. Many of the egg clutches are disturbed by the bay’s wave action or by successive spawning females and come to the surface.

These millions of loose eggs on the bay beaches become a feast for migrating shorebirds, including red knots, ruddy turnstones, semipalmated sandpipers, sanderlings, short-billed dowitchers and dunlins. The birds have already traveled thousands of miles and have lost a great deal of weight. They feed voraciously on the horseshoe crab eggs, regaining as much as four to nine percent of their body weight per day before resuming their migration to the Arctic.

Researchers capture shorebirds, measure and weigh them, and attach a flag with a unique alphanumeric code. The flag’s color signifies the country where the bird was caught. Teams of scientists and volunteers can monitor shorebird numbers and movements around the Delaware Bay and along their migration routes by resighting these flags. Horseshoe crabs are also tagged.

“Each spring, Delaware’s resident horseshoe crabs and visiting migratory shorebirds come together in a natural spectacle on our Bayshore beaches that can be seen nowhere else in the world,” said DNREC Secretary David Small. “The film premiering today will be available to a wide audience so more people can learn about this unique event and its ecological and environmental importance.”

Jean Woods, Ph.D., Curator of Birds and Director of Collections at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, has been part of the Delaware Shorebird Project for 16 years. “As a researcher, I’m privileged to study the shorebirds and horseshoe crabs that come to Delaware Bay, and it’s exciting to share what we do with a broader audience,” Woods said. “We hope to encourage people to come out and experience this phenomenon for themselves – it’s even more impressive in person.”

The Delaware Bay is a major stop on the Atlantic Flyway for spring migrating shorebirds and supports the largest gathering of rufa red knots. Providing and maintaining quality nesting, migration stopover and wintering sites in this region is extremely important for population health and stability of Atlantic Flyway shorebird populations. Actions taken to conserve and monitor shorebirds here have wide-ranging benefits to the flyway. The Delaware Bay is an important link in the Atlantic Flyway Shorebird Initiative, a cross-organizational effort to conserve 15 Atlantic Flyway shorebird species.

The film was produced by Michael Oates of 302 Stories, Inc., who has filmed shorebirds and horseshoe crabs for more than 30 years.  He first drew attention to the crisis of overharvesting of horseshoe crabs with his 1999 Emmy-nominated program Dollars on the Beach.  His video footage is also a key element in the hugely successful Green Eggs and Sand curriculum, developed by DNREC’s Division of Fish & Wildlife.

 

Public Restrooms

The public restrooms located at the pavilion are now open for the season.

DNREC offers new flood planning tool for determining risk for home and business development projects

DOVER (March 15, 2017) –  DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship’s Shoreline & Waterway Management Section now offers an interactive Flood Planning Tool with up-to-date information for helping to determine flood risk for homes and businesses and for designing development projects in accordance with floodplain codes.

The Flood Planning Tool website is designed to provide residents, businesses, floodplain managers, insurance agents, developers, real estate agents, engineers, surveyors and local planners with an effective means to make informed decisions about the degree of flood risk for a specific area or property. Flood Planning Tool users have the ability to look at the current effective Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM) layer as well as the preliminary FIRM layer.

The preliminary layer shows Delaware areas that will be revised with more detailed information as a result of flood studies that have been conducted.

DNREC’s new Flood Planning Tool website also displays FEMA’s regulatory floodplain boundary via aerial photography. Another feature is DNREC’s analysis of several special flood hazard areas that have not previously been studied in enough detail to establish a base flood elevation. The Flood Planning Tool can be found at http://maps.dnrec.delaware.gov/FloodPlanning/default.html.

Over the past 12 years, DNREC’s Division of Watershed Stewardship has partnered with FEMA to improve the accuracy of Flood Insurance Rate Maps created in the 1970’s through a Cooperating Technical Partnership. DNREC completed floodplain mapping for all three Delaware counties in 2016. The improved flood risk maps incorporate the results of more than 330 miles of flood studies.

Property owners along Zone A floodplains have had a difficult time in the past at both understanding their flood risk and in getting properly-rated flood insurance. Base Flood Elevations and Advisory Flood Heights have now been determined in most of these areas, and a more accurate depiction of flood risk is now available. In the future engineers, developers and local officials will also be able to download HEC-RAS models (HEC-RAS is a widely-used computer program modeling the hydraulics of water flow).

Please contact Greg Williams or Janice Shute of DNREC’s Shoreline & Waterway Management Section for more information at 302-739-9921.