Posted on June 25, 2025
The dying Maurepas Swamp between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is another step closer to being revitalized thanks to a $60 million grant, the last major funding needed to construct the nearly $500 million project within one of the largest forested wetlands in the country.
The project, led by the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, aims to reunite the swamp with the Mississippi River after more than 80 years of separation. The diversion project, which broke ground in December, is also one of the biggest investments the RESTORE council that allocates settlement dollars from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster has funded.
In the decades since the levee system disconnected the swamp from the river, the Maurepas ecosystem of cypress trees and migratory birds along Interstate 10 has seriously dwindled. The project is expected to replenish around 45,000 acres of wetlands over the next 50 years, protecting residents in four nearby parishes from storm surge while reviving a formerly popular fishing and wildlife spot.
“This is a game changer for the people and economy of the region,” said Gordon “Gordy” Dove, CPRA chairman. “Bringing the river back into the Maurepas Swamp means healthier wetlands, stronger protection for local communities and a boost for the local economy. It’s about making sure future generations can live, work and thrive here.”
‘Very small diversion’
Beyond the swamp restoration, the project also has an additional cost-sharing benefit. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will use some of the restored area — around 9,000 acres — to offset environmental damage caused by the construction of the nearby West Shore Lake Pontchartrain levee project. This is the first time that the Army Corps has agreed to use a state coastal project for its required mitigation. The total cost of the West Shore project is estimated at $3.7 billion.
The roughly $500 million for Maurepas is the best estimate of what will be needed for the diversion itself and the first few miles of the levee that overlaps with the channel, CPRA project manager Brad Miller said. This will come from a mix of state and settlement funds. The estimated cost of the swamp restoration itself is estimated at around $300 million.
Maurepas Swamp revitalization plans: The state is planning to reconnect the Maurepas Swamp west of New Orleans to the Mississippi River through a diversion channel, with the dual aim of improving storm defenses and revitalizing the ecosystem.
Slated for completion in 2028, the finished 5.5-mile channel will bring water from the river into the swamp, with the infrastructure tying into the levee. The diversion will release relatively low amounts of river water during the springtime at up to 2,000 cubic feet per second, levels mimicking the annual flooding that occurred before the levees were built.
Dove stressed that the Maurepas project is “a very small diversion,” in contrast to the Bonnet Carre Spillway or the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, whose construction has now been suspended. Dove opposes the Mid-Barataria coastal restoration project in its current form largely because of the harmful effects it would have on commercial fishing, though advocates argue it is necessary to address Louisiana’s land loss crisis.
Openings of the Bonnet Carre spillway have also been controversial since they have led to algae blooms and other environmental harms in the Lake Pontchartrain Basin and along the Mississippi coast due to the influx of fresh water and nutrient pollution. But the powerful diversion is an important flood control measure for the region, redirecting water at a rate up to 125 times that of the Maurepas project if necessary.
“The River Reintroduction into Maurepas Swamp project exemplifies the large-scale, science-based restoration that the council was created to deliver,” said Mary Walker, executive director of the RESTORE Council. “It reflects strong state and federal collaboration, and we’re excited to see it moving toward completion.”
As the project broke ground last year, the state’s oldest coastal advocacy nonprofit also began planting scores of bald cypress and water tupelo trees in the swamp. Over the next three years, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana will plant 4,500 trees on top of the 8,000 it has planted since 2015.
