Posted on November 14, 2017
By Robert Rhoden, NOLA.com
Crews have nearly completed a $28 million project to restore more than 600 acres of marsh and nourish another 310 acres on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority reported. The work, south of Slidell, is about 90 percent complete, CPRA said.
Lake dredging, which supplied sediment to re-establish the lake’s shoreline rim near the mouth of Bayou Bonfouca, is expected to wrap up in early December. Remaining construction-related work is scheduled to be completed by January, according to the agency.
“Populated areas between Lacombe and Slidell had been losing their natural protective buffer as this area continued to erode into open water,” Johnny Bradberry, chairman of the CPRA board, said in a news release Wednesday (Nov. 8).
The lake-rim shoreline was breached during Hurricane Katrina; freshwater interior marsh was degraded and eroded, and saltier water from the lake pushed into the marsh. “Once construction is completed, this portion of Lake Pontchartrain shoreline will see the return of a healthy and protective marsh ecosystem,” Bradberry said.
The CPRA board is partnering with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on the project, which will restore some 620 acres of marsh.
“By giving the marsh more sediment to root in and by restoring the lake perimeter, the healthier marsh environment will help lessen storm and tidal surge damage,” CPRA Executive Director Michael Ellis said.
The project is located within the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge. The federal government is supplying 85 percent of the cost, with CPRA supplying the remaining 15 percent.
Source: nola
