Earlier today, I was joined by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Regional Director Wendi Weber as I visited the Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge to celebrate the completion of one of the largest and most complex coastal restoration projects ever undertaken on the East Coast.

Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge is one of two federal wildlife refuges in Delaware. Established in 1963, Prime Hook spans more than 10,000 acres and serves as an important sanctuary for millions of migratory birds traveling up and down the East Coast and across the globe every year. It’s also home to hundreds of other species of fish, reptiles and amphibians, and mammals. We are incredibly lucky to have Prime Hook in our own backyard, open seven days a week for bird-watching, photography, hunting and fishing, and most important, environmental education.

In 2012, when Superstorm Sandy swept across the East Coast, inundating New Jersey’s beach communities in historic flooding and knocking out power for millions in New York City, Prime Hook bore the brunt of Sandy’s storm surges. Many of its protective beaches and dunes took considerable damage.

Immediately following Sandy, I joined Senator Chris Coons and Congressman John Carney in securing federal funding to restore Prime Hook and protect it, and our communities, from future storms and sea-level rise. The $38 million restoration project got underway in July 2015.

Nearly four years to the day since Sandy made landfall, we’ve completed one of the largest coastal restoration projects on the East Coast. We restored 4,000 acres of coastal marsh, rebuilt an 8,000-foot long, 9-foot high coastal dune, and dredged more than 25 miles of tidal channels to restore flow of tidal water to the wetland complex.

I was proud to join Secretary Jewell and Wendi Weber earlier today to celebrate the success of this massive restoration and preservation project. Our combined efforts to rebuild Prime Hook are not just important to restore our natural buffer to increasingly dangerous storms and ever-rising seas, but they’re important to protecting an incredibly diverse, beautiful piece of nature.

Nearly 75,000 people visit Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge each year, and the bulk of those are wildlife observers – families and students there to learn and explore. It is one of our greatest responsibilities to ensure that Prime Hook, and the wildlife that call it home, is protected for the generations to come.