Posted on August 22, 2024
LULING, La. – At its monthly board meeting in Luling, La. today, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) announced grant funding totaling over $37 million dollars for coastal projects in Louisiana.
The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council (RESTORE Council) has awarded $25.5 million to CPRA under its Spill Impact Component Program to fund continued work on CPRA’s Adaptive Management Program, which will maximize the success of the coastal protection and restoration program by iteratively incorporating new information into each step of the master plan decision making process.
These funds will build on previous Spill Impact Component investments by CPRA and the RESTORE Council of $34.6 million under the Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act of 2012 (RESTORE Act) to implement the final phase of the System Wide Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP) under the Adaptive Management Program. SWAMP was developed as a long-term monitoring program to ensure a comprehensive network of coastal data collection activities are in place to support the development, implementation, and adaptive management of the coastal protection and restoration program within coastal Louisiana.
“We are grateful for the RESTORE Council’s recognition of the critical need to continue funding SWAMP and CPRA’s Adaptive Management Program,” said CPRA Chairman Gordon “Gordy” Dove. “CPRA’s projects are based on the best available scientific data. We rely on programs like SWAMP to ensure that we are designing and building projects that will have the largest, longest-lasting impact on the health of Louisiana’s coast.”
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) also recently recommended CPRA’s Chandeleur Island Restoration Project to receive $10 million over the next three years under its Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience funding program.
Featured in the 2023 Coastal Master Plan and the Louisiana Wildlife Action Plan, the Chandeleur Islands Restoration Project will improve the function, resilience, and longevity of the island chain by working with nature to reintroduce eroded sand back to the island. Improvements to the islands will support fish and wildlife in the northern Gulf of Mexico and will provide protection to local communities by reducing the effect of tropical storms.
CPRA is currently in the engineering and design phase of the project, which will restore 13 miles of the barrier island chain.
The Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience program is part of a larger national program in which NOAA recommended 32 habitat restoration and coastal resilience projects receive a share of nearly $220 million in funding this year and an additional $66 million in future-year grant funds through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Also recommended by NOAA as a grant recipient, The Nature Conservancy plans to use the funding to engage a conservation corps workforce of at least 200 young adults across the Gulf of Mexico, known as the GulfCorps Resilience Collaborative (GRC).
The GRC will work with communities across approximately 10,000 acres of diverse Gulf of Mexico habitats, including Louisiana, to implement nature-based coastal solutions. The GRC focuses on utilizing natural features to improve wildlife habitat and strengthen communities’ resilience to coastal hazards like storms and floods.
Examples of these nature-based projects include building oyster reefs, restoring marshes, protecting and creating habitat for waterfowl and endangered species, and managing invasive plant and animal species that harm ecosystems.
NOAA has recommended $12 million total over the course of three years for The Nature Conservancy to support the work of the GRC. Under this initiative, each of the five Gulf Coast States, including Louisiana, will receive benefits of approximately $2.4 million over three years.
If awarded, the NOAA funding will begin in fall 2024 and continue over four years.
“Grants like the ones recommended by NOAA and our other Federal partners are paramount to the work we do day in and day out to protect our coast,” said CPRA Executive Director Glenn Ledet, Jr. “CPRA continues to design innovative, transformational projects that can and will increase the health and resilience of our coast. However, ambitious projects come with significant costs. I am grateful for our staff’s unwavering dedication in pursuing every possible funding opportunity to advance our mission of safeguarding Louisiana’s unique and irreplaceable coastline.”
