Coquille Estuary
Overview
The Coquille Estuary provides key ecological, economic and cultural benefits. These include (but are not limited to):
- Helping improve water quality Estuaries act like enormous filters. Pollutants such as herbicides, pesticides, and heavy metals, as well as excess sediments and nutrients, are filtered out of the water as it flows through the marsh grasses and peat (a spongy matrix of live roots, decomposing organic material, and soil) of salt marshes, and estuarine and freshwater wetlands.
- Estuaries and their surrounding wetlands are great buffer zones Estuaries absorb the impacts of storm surges and flood events, thus stabilizing and protecting adjacent habitats, private lands and other resources. When flooding does occur, estuaries often act like huge sponges, soaking up the excess water. Estuarine habitats also protect streams, river channels and coastal shores from excessive erosion caused by wind and water.
- Estuaries provide habitat important to salmon, steelhead, crab and other invertebrates, birds and many other fish and wildlife species Often called nurseries of the sea, estuaries provide vital nesting and feeding habitats for many animals. Most fish and shellfish eaten in the United States, including salmon, herring, and oysters, complete at least part of their life cycles in estuaries.