Coastwide Vegetative Planting

The coastal restoration community has long recognized the benefits of vegetative plantings in restoration. Many marsh creation and most terracing projects require plantings to insure success. Coastal shoreline plantings have also proven to be very effective and some have demonstrated the ability to not only stop shoreline erosion but to facilitate accretion, the process of increasing sediments. Recent hurricane events have exposed a need to have a mechanism in place where large-scale planting efforts can be deployed in a timely manner to specifically targeted areas of need, anywhere along the coast. Although the CWPPRA program can fund specific large-scale planting projects, the normal program cycle for individual projects can delay needed restoration plantings for a number of years.

The goals of this project are to facilitate a consistent and responsive planting effort in coastal Louisiana that is flexible enough to routinely plant on a large scale and be able to rapidly respond to critical areas of need following storm or other damaging events. This project set up an advisory panel consisting of representatives from various state and federal agencies who would assist in the selection of projects for funding. The project also set up a mechanism by which project nominations would be submitted for consideration. The equivalent of 90 acres of interior marsh and 40,000 linear feet of coastal shoreline will be planted per year over a 10 year period to effectively create/protect a total of 779 net acres of marsh over the 20-year project life.

The project features are located in the coastal zone of Louisiana.

This project is on Priority Project List (PPL) 20.

The Coastwide Vegetative Planting project sponsors include:

• Federal Sponsor: Natural Resources Conservation Service
• Local Sponsor: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority

Keep up with this project and other CWPPRA projects on the project page.

 

Wetland Plants

Plants are a vital piece of healthy and sustainable wetland ecosystems. Plants are the base of the food chain and can build new layers of organic material on top of wetlands which helps them keep pace with subsidence and rising waters. Wetland vegetation reduces erosion primarily by dampening and absorbing wave and current energy and by binding and stabilizing the soil with roots. Coastal wetland plant species are indicators of soil and hydrologic conditions. The amount and salinity of water in an area influence which plants grow there. Scientists often classify Louisiana marshes into four types: fresh, intermediate, brackish, and saline.

The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection, and Restoration Act puts native wetland plant benefits to use through restoration techniques that include vegetative plantings. Vegetative planting projects are used both alone and in conjunction with barrier island restoration, marsh creation, shoreline protection, and sediment and nutrient trapping restoration techniques. These projects use flood-and salt-tolerant native marsh plants that will hold sediments together and stabilize the soil with their roots as they become established in a new area.

BA-38 Barataria Barrier Island Complex Project: Pelican Island and Pass La Mer to Chaland Pass Restoration

 

 

 

 

Bayou Grande Cheniere Marsh & Ridge Restoration

Significant marsh loss has occurred south of Lake Hermitage with the construction of numerous oil and gas canals, subsidence, and sediment deprivation. The most significant loss occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the hyper-temporal analysis conducted by USGS for the extended boundary, loss rates in the project area are estimated to be -1.16% per ear for the period 1984 to 2011.

The goals of the Bayou Grande Cheniere Marsh and Ridge Restoration Project (BA-173) are to restore marsh habitat adjacent to the eastern shoreline of Bayou Grande Cheniere, reestablish the corresponding section of the bayou’s forested ridge habitat along this shoreline, and create terraces to restore marsh in open water habitat. Specific objectives are to 1) restore 302 acres of brackish marsh habitat, 2) construct the marsh platform to an elevation that supports healthy marsh; 3) reestablish 10,625 linear feet of the historic Bayou Grande Cheniere Ridge to an elevation that supports healthy woody vegetation, 4) establish the ridge with diverse native woody species, and 5) construct 12,000 linear feet of terraces to an elevation that will support healthy marsh.

Riverine sediments will be hydraulically dredged and pumped via pipeline to create/nourish approximately 302 acres of marsh. Containment dikes will be constructed around the perimeter of the marsh creation cells. The proposed design is to place the dredged material to a target fill elevation of +3.0 feet which would ultimately settle to an approximate elevation of just under +0.75 feet NAVD88 (Geoid 12A) at TY20. Tidal creeks are expected to form naturally and containment dikes will be gapped and degraded to enhance the naturally formed tidal creeks.

Hydraulically dredged river sediments will be used to restore 10,625 linear feet of the Bayou Grande Cheniere Ridge. The ridge will have 25-ft crown width, a target height of +4.5 ft NAVD88, and side slopes of 1(V):8(H). Herbaceous plantings (e.g., seashore paspalum) will be necessary immediately after construction and bottomland hardwood species (seedlings and saplings) will be planted by Year 3. Funding for tallow control and maintenance plantings is also included.

In addition, 11,700 linear feet of earthen terraces will be constructed resulting in the creation of approximately 10 acres of wetlands benefiting 154 acres of open water. Each terrace segment will be approximately 450 feet long and built to an elevation of +3.0 feet, with a 25-foot crown width and 1(V):4(H) side slopes. The terraces will be constructed with a bucket dredge using in situ material from within the terrace field.

This project is located in Plaquemines Parish west of the Mississippi River near West Pointe a la Hache. Specifically, the project features are south of Lake Hermitage and along the eastern side of Bayou Grande Cheniere.

This project is on Priority Project List (PPL) 23.

The Bayou Grande Cheniere Marsh & Ridge Restoration project sponsors include:

• Federal Sponsor: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
• Local Sponsor: Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority 

Keep up with this project and other CWPPRA projects on the project page.