SLAUGHTER BEACH – The DuPont Nature Center at Mispillion Harbor Reserve, a DNREC Division of Fish & Wildlife facility, will host its seventh annual Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival, celebrating the spring spectacle of migrating shorebirds and spawning horseshoe crabs, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 21 at the center, located at 2992 Lighthouse Road, Milford, DE 19963. Admission is free.

Festivities will feature children’s games and a variety of fun and educational activities for everyone. A series of Estuary Eco-Challenge stations will be set up on the center’s grounds for visitors of all ages. Visitors will learn about how to identify shorebirds, get close to live horseshoe crabs and other aquatic species, learn how to cast a fishing rod, learn about boating safety, try their hand at Gyotaku fish printing, and much more!

Visitors also will have great viewing opportunities from the center’s large deck to check out interaction between horseshoe crabs and migrating shorebirds, including federally-threatened red knots, which depend on horseshoe crab eggs to help fuel their 9,000-mile journey from South America to their Arctic breeding grounds. DNREC’s Delaware Shorebird Project Team members will be on hand to identify the shorebirds along the shoreline surrounding the center.

Parking will be available at the Lacy E. Nichols Jr. Cedar Creek Boating Access Area’s public boat ramp, with a shuttle running to the center throughout the day. The festival will be held rain or shine.

Perched on the edge of Mispillion Harbor at the intersection of the mouths of the Mispillion River and Cedar Creek, the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s DuPont Nature Center regularly offers a variety of interactive exhibits, school tours and educational programs. Spring and summer hours from May 1 through Aug. 31 are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. September hours will be 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays. The center will close for the season at the end of the day Friday, Sept. 30, reopening in April 2017. Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information about the Peace, Love & Horseshoe Crab Festival, or about the DuPont Nature Center and its programs, please call 302-422-1329. Also visit DuPont Nature Center, or find us on Facebook: facebook.com/DelawareFishWildlife.

The DuPont Nature Center is a focal point of the Delaware Bayshore, and is part of DNREC’s Delaware Bayshore Initiative, a landscape approach to restore and protect fish and wildlife habitat, increase volunteer participation in habitat stewardship projects, enhance low-impact outdoor recreation and ecotourism opportunities, and promote associated environmentally compatible economic development. For more information, click Delaware Bayshore.

Media Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 46, No. 164

DOVER – DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section and the Delaware Division of Public Health (DPH) share tips on mosquito-borne illness prevention and precautions in the new video, “Zika Virus, Mosquitoes & You,” on DNREC’s YouTube Channel.

DPH Director Dr. Karyl Rattay and Mosquito Control Section Biologist Thomas Moran talk about the Zika virus, including how it is spread – including by bites from carrier mosquitoes and from expectant mothers to their unborn babies – as well as prevention and monitoring efforts, and what Delawareans can do to reduce their chances of exposure to Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

In the video, Dr. Rattay urges bite prevention as the best medicine. “First and foremost, use an EPA-certified insect repellent. Stay inside where it’s air-conditioned, or use screens in windows or doors. Wear long sleeves. Wear long pants,” she says. Dr. Rattay also goes into detail about protecting children from mosquito bites, how best to apply repellent to children and using mosquito netting, not repellent, on babies less than two months old.

Delawareans also are encouraged to be proactive in their own backyards to eliminate or reduce mosquito breeding habitat by eliminating standing water. “Anything in the backyard that holds water can breed the primary species of concern that could carry Zika, the Asian tiger mosquito … These mosquitoes can breed in extremely small habitats – we’re talking a bottle cap,” Moran says in the video. “If you can eliminate the containers to begin with, that’s the best option. If not, they need to be emptied regularly and kept from accumulating water.”

To request relief from intolerable numbers of biting mosquitoes and/or an inspection or treatment of potential mosquito-breeding areas, call Mosquito Control’s field offices:

• Glasgow Office, 302-836-2555, serving New Castle County and the northern half of Kent County, including Dover
• Milford Office, 302-422-1512, serving the southern half of Kent County south of Dover and all of Sussex County

For more information about Delaware’s Mosquito Control program, including more information about how to prevent or get rid of standing water that produces mosquitoes, call the field offices or the main Dover office at 302-739-9917, or visit http://de.gov/mosquito.

For more information about Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses in humans, please contact the Delaware Division of Public Health at 302-744-1033 or 888-295-5156, or visit http://dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/zika.html.

Facts and information on Zika and mosquito control also are available at the following links:

• English: http://dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/files/zikafaq.pdf
• Spanish: http://dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/files/zikafaqsp.pdf
• Haitian Creole: http://dhss.delaware.gov/dhss/dph/files/zikafaqhc.pdf

As of this date, DPH has confirmed three travel-related Zika cases in Delaware. All were the result of mosquito bites that occurred abroad, and none involved a pregnant woman. There are no confirmed cases of local transmission due to a mosquito bite in the continental U.S. at this time.

DNREC’s Mosquito Control Section in the Division of Fish & Wildlife provides statewide services to about 945,000 Delaware residents and 7.5 million visitors annually to maintain quality of life and protect public health by reducing the possibility of mosquito-borne illnesses such as West Nile virus, eastern equine encephalitis, chikungunya and Zika virus. Throughout the warmer months, Mosquito Control monitors and treats mosquito populations that emerge from wetland areas throughout the state, including ditches, stormwater ponds, wet woodlands and coastal salt marshes, using EPA-registered insecticides. These insecticides have been determined by EPA to pose no unreasonable risk to human health, wildlife or the environment when professionally applied. The Section also works year-round on water and marsh management projects designed to reduce mosquito populations, and provides the public with information on dealing with mosquitoes, from reducing backyard mosquito production to avoiding mosquito bites. For more information, call 302-739-9917 or visit http://de.gov/mosquito.

Media Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 46, No. 162

LEWES – Visitors to Cape Henlopen State Park are advised that certain areas of the park, including parts of the park’s bike loop, will be closed for 10 days from May 16 – 25, due to construction activities within the Fort Miles area of the park. Closed will be the main road into the Fort Miles Historic area, the fort’s main parking lot and about a half-mile of the paved bike loop passing through Fort Miles. Other sections of the bike loop will remain open.

Media Contact: Beth Shockley, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 46, No. 161

LEWES – Volunteers who want to help protect Delaware’s endangered piping plovers and other beachnesting birds by joining DNREC’s monitoring team are invited to a training session from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 14, at Cape Henlopen State Park’s Biden Environmental Training Center, 15099 Cape Henlopen Drive, Lewes, DE 19958.

“With the strong storms that hit Delaware’s beaches over the winter, a lot of new habitat for beachnesting birds has opened up. It will be more important than ever that we have volunteer assistance in protecting their nesting habitat so that they can take full advantage of this opportunity to further increase their populations,” said Wildlife Biologist Matthew Bailey of the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s Beachnester Monitoring Program.

The training session will begin with a slideshow followed by a discussion on the monitoring program and how volunteers can help to ensure that beachnesting shorebirds are not disturbed while rearing their chicks.

Weather permitting, the group will finish the session by venturing out to the Point at Cape Henlopen to look for piping plovers and other shorebirds likely to be feeding on the tidal flats. Birding scopes and binoculars will be available for use, but volunteers are encouraged to bring their own optics if they have them.

“Volunteers are critical to our protection efforts. When stationed at the boundaries of the nesting areas, volunteers can help explain facts to passersby about the breeding birds and the importance of keeping closed areas free of human disturbance,” Bailey said. “Without volunteers to supplement the coverage our staff provides, many people might never have the chance to better understand how humans can make a difference in the breeding success of beachnesting birds.”

Preregistration for the training is encouraged, but attendees also will be accepted at the door. Park entrance fees will be waived for volunteers attending the training by notifying the fee booth attendant. For more information on the training, beachnesting birds or monitoring efforts, please contact Matthew Bailey at 302-382-4151 or email matthew.bailey@delaware.gov.

About the piping plover
The piping plover was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1986, and the Division of Fish and Wildlife is responsible for its protection in Delaware. Under a binding agreement and species management plan that DNREC made in 1990 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) – the federal agency with oversight of this ESA-protected species – piping plover nesting areas at Cape Henlopen State Park are closed annually to the public to protect the shorebirds from disturbance during their nesting season from March into September. The closure, which includes the Point and smaller areas around Gordon’s Pond and with both feeding habitat and nesting areas protected, has been successful, increasing the number of piping plover nesting pairs from a low of two pairs to a high of nine pairs. Piping plovers feed on small invertebrates that inhabit the intertidal zone near their nesting territories. Chicks are not fed by their parents, but rather are led to the shoreline to forage while the adults keep watch for potential threats. Allowing pedestrian traffic in the intertidal zone adjoining nesting areas would disturb the vital link between nesting and foraging habitat and risk adverse stress or mortality to the chicks.

Media Contact: Joanna Wilson, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 46, No. 160

DOVER – Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control will launch an initiative to further streamline and expedite permitting, licensing and administrative processes, including management and storage of data throughout the Department. The initiative – which moves forward today with DNREC’s issuing of an RFP (request for proposals) for assistance in evaluating and redesigning agency administrative processes and performance improvement – is a significant next step in DNREC’s efforts to develop greater business efficiencies. The plan builds on and extends improvements already achieved as part of Governor Jack Markell’s “rapid response” targeted turnaround times for permitting and business application reviews (Executive Order 9), while also enhancing transparency and public access to DNREC information and data.

The RFP was released through the Delaware Office of Management and Budget’s central Bid Solicitation Directory. Along with administrative and process improvements, the scope of work includes efficiency reviews and coaching for DNREC staff to ensure long-term stability, growth and continued performance enhancement.

The initiative marks another phase of continuous improvement of DNREC’s government business model – especially for the divisions and programs within the Department that issue permits and sell licenses. These investments have produced operational benefits – such as the Division of Parks & Recreation’s new online system for purchasing surf-fishing permits – that also provide customer convenience. The initiative’s focus will be drawn on improving data management and on making workflows more efficient through automation and modern information management technology

“DNREC is an environmental management and regulatory agency, but we are also a steward of data and information that we rely on to make decisions, conduct business and share with our many and diverse customers,” said DNREC Secretary David Small. “We need to build systems that meet internal and external needs through continuous improvement that enable us to work smarter and faster.”

DNREC, with assistance of the regulated community, previously reviewed a number of its permitting programs to improve the Department’s timeliness in responding. That effort resulted in reducing air permitting turnaround times by 50 percent (while eliminating backlog) and cutting brownfield remediation process times by 45 percent. Other DNREC programs also have achieved significant reductions in the time necessary for permit application review and have sustained permitting programs and operations by drawing on efficiencies identified and implemented with the regulated community.

Secretary Small reiterated that DNREC has met or exceeded the turnaround targets for permitting set by Gov. Markell providing reliable 15-day preliminary review and 60-day technical review for most applications. Homeowners and businesses such as realtors and contractors have saved time and money from DNREC’s improved efficiencies. Farmers have benefited from permitting reviews through a new DNREC program that allows them to receive treated wastewater for crop irrigation with only a permit modification.

“Our strategic goals for this initiative include continuing to meet and exceed the permitting performance standards established by the Governor and promoting principles and techniques to accelerate agency business processes while still meeting environmental standards and natural resource management goals,” Secretary Small said.

To achieve its streamlining goals, DNREC must continue to make progress on a larger series of related projects, including updating public-facing and internal e-Government information technology applications, revitalizing DNREC’s websites, and modernizing databases and information technology tools.

DNREC began its transition to electronic storage of documents and data in 1997 and has scanned and stored about 10 million pages since then. However, the original storage systems need to be updated and integrated for ease of use both internally and externally, and for simplifying information discovery and presentation. This initiative will accomplish those goals and provide broader and easier access to information, with the public chiefly in mind.

DNREC will engage stakeholders who routinely submit permit applications to gain their perspectives on helping guide the project. Anticipated benefits and improved efficiencies will include:

• Quicker turnaround of environmental data and policy analysis requests
• More certainty and less concern for businesses by reducing the time between application submission and permit decision
• A higher percentage of DNREC processes streamlined and more information available for businesses, partner agencies and the public
• Improved ability to solicit, receive, review and publish public comments
• More structured information available for the public, researchers, partner agencies, municipalities, and others
• Improved efficiency in environmental complaint follow-up and inspections
• Increased reuse of information technology architecture and services to maximize the value of technology investments
• Reducing the burden on DNREC staff while improving business processes, making it possible for staff to work with equal efficiency regardless of which program they work in or their office location

The RFP is now open for proposals via the state’s central Bid Solicitation Directory at bids.delaware.gov.

Media Contact: Michael Globetti, DNREC Public Affairs, 302-739-9902

Vol. 46, No. 154