Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency Awards Two Projects to RES

The State of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Agency has awarded two coastal restoration projects via competitive bid to RES’ Ecological Restoration Services subsidiary: CPRA’s BA-141 NRDA Lake Hermitage Marsh Creation Increment II – Vegetative Plantings Project in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana and CS-33 Cameron Parish Shoreline Sand Fence Replacement Project.

The Lake Hermitage project is funded by Deepwater Horizon funds as a NRDA early restoration project. The Lake Hermitage Marsh Creation – NRDA Early Restoration Project intends to create new brackish marsh. The project area is located in the Barataria Basin in an area referred to as the “West Pointe a la Hache Mapping Unit,” which is south and east of Lake Hermitage in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana. The ecological services gained by this project are anticipated to help compensate for brackish marsh injuries or losses due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The created marsh is constructed in the Barataria Hydrologic Basin, which was heavily impacted by the oil spill. RES teams are growing, propagating, pulling and potting over 220,000 pots of restorative vegetation for delivery and installation in October 2015.

The Cameron Parish Shoreline Sand Fence Replacement Project involves replacing the existing sand fence along a 9-mile stretch of the Gulf of Mexico coast, starting on the western side of the Calcasieu Ship Channel’s gulf outlet and proceeding to approximately two miles west of Holly Beach. The present shoreline is eroding at a rate of 5 to 30 feet per year and is threatening the coastal highway, the only remaining barrier between the Gulf of Mexico and a 40,000-acre marsh. Any breach of the roadway will increase salinity and introduce rapid tidal exchange that could convert the marsh into open water. This project will keep the shoreline position at or seaward of the current position for 20 years and lessen the chance of losing the beachfront, the road, and the marshland ecosystem.