The Colonial Pipeline Lake Lery to Lake Borgne Marsh Restoration project restored the affected areas by the newly installed Colonial Line 7 pipeline. RES teamed up with the Prime Contractor, Dean Equipment, to assist with the restoration efforts of this project. During the project, we installed 16.1 acres of an approved mix of marsh grasses including Roseau Cane, Smooth Cordgrass, Seashore Paspalum, Cut Grass, and Bull Rush. These plants were installed at the appropriate elevations. The elevations were built up using dredging/slurry box procedures to pump in a sandy-fill material to cover the pipe and create a marsh restoration area.

One of our portions of this project came from the monitoring of the project area once construction was complete. The monitoring team recognized a problematic area that was starting to be affected by erosion. To resolve the issue, our team installed 432 LF of 12” Coir Fiber Logs with stakes to allow the newly constructed marsh area to withstand some of these erosion processes. Our team also went back and re-planted this area with a more tightly spaced Smooth Cordgrass planting.

Project Highlights
• Installed 16.1 acres with an approved marsh mix of species.
• Installed 432 lf of coir fiber logs and smooth cordgrass plugs
• Planted in three different locations across the pipeline corridor
• Restored the waterside of the project area that was affected by erosion