Gaillard Island is an artificially created island located in Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama. It was built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, using sand and mud dredged from the Mobile Bay ship channel and elsewhere. The island is an important site for colonial nesting seabirds and shore birds in coastal Alabama and has been the only nesting site for brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) in Alabama - first discovered in 1983. Geography The island is and is configured in a triangular shape. It is located approximately east of Theodore Industrial Park Complex and approximately to southeast of downtown Mobile, AL. Thirty-one million cubic yards of dredged material pulled from the bay and nearby land was used to form the island. The excavated material consisted primarily of hard red clay from the land and silty sand infused with small amounts of shell and gravel from the bottom of the bay. The dredged material was transported by barge and hydraulically pumped to the island site to make the dikes. Tests were performed by the Corps of Engineers to determine how to maintain the island and not allow it to dissipate into the bay. A triangular shape was designed and floating tire breakwaters were used to protect the island from erosion due to wave action. Marsh plants were used to develop an established root system to assist with long term integrity of the island. This was a state-of-the-art technique which has been widely studied, found to be effective and is now used nationwide. History In 1979 Gaillard Island was created as a disposal island for a ship channel made to connect Mobile Bay and Theodore Industrial Park where a navy port was built. The project consisted of dredging a deep draft ship channel about long, wide and deep. The project was controversial from an engineering and environmental standpoint. The engineers thought the island would not hold up in an open body of water and the environmentalists were concerned about the impact on the bay from an ecological standpoint. The island has been a success from the onset and has become an environmental showcase, home to thousands of birds, particularly brown pelicans. The island is named after Dr. M. Wilson Gaillard, a Mobile dentist. He was also an environmentalist who envisioned the island as a nesting haven for both shore and seabirds. The island is also known as Pelican Island by locals.