NRG Energy Inc., which operates power plants in Connecticut, has received the White House Coastal America Partnership Award for its support of Texas’ North Deer Island restoration project.
The North Deer Island shoreline restoration was a collaboration between federal, state, and local governments and private groups to stabilize nearly two miles of shoreline that was once rapidly eroding.
Doing so ensured the long-term protection of a colonial waterbird rookery on the upper Texas coast, offering nesting and foraging sites for tens of thousands of waterfowl, Princeton, N.J.-based NRG said.
NRG donated the smooth cord grass plants used to reduce erosion and as a wildlife habitat in the North Deer Island restoration. The cord grass was grown at the NRG’s EcoCenter in Chambers County near Baytown, Texas.
Over the past five years, NRG says it has donated 17,000 plants to the cause and employees have also joined other volunteers to help plant the grass at North Deer Island.
