Posted on November 25, 2024
PORT FOURCHON, La. – Chett Chaisson leads a boat tour highlighting a newly-built section of marsh near Port Fourchon, the giant oil and gas service port where he serves as executive director.
“Right behind this dirt berm right here is newly created land,” said Chaisson, as he pointed to a section of restored wetlands on the north side of the port.
“It’s part of the 1,200 acres of marsh we’ve created since the year 2000,” Chaisson said.
Contractors on the $4 million project dredged material and delivered it by pipe to create an instant marsh.
“Every bit of sand or material that we can put on our coast in any of these locations is better than it was the day before,” Chaisson said.
The effort also has a practical aspect to it, providing a buffer against hurricanes.
“We have seen (South Lafourche Parish) change dramatically over the last couple years,” said Simone Maloz, Campaign Director for Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a group of environmental organizations which have joined forces to push for coastal restoration projects.
Maloz notes the effects of Hurricane Ida in 2021, which bulldozed its way up Louisiana Hwy. 1 through Lafourche, upending lives, destroying property and devouring coastline which may never recover.
“We are at the heart of two of the most abundant estuaries right here in coastal Louisiana, but really in North America,” Maloz said. “But it is also the heart of land loss.”
Just up the road, Ducks Unlimited worked with Port Fourchon and other partners to install terraces, small man-made islands where marsh had converted to open water.
“We’re able to create habitat by building islands out in open water that was historically marsh,” said Cassidy Lejeune, DU’s Director of Conservation Programs. “We’re able to stabilize the area and stop additional loss and erosion from happening.”
Lejeune said Ducks Unlimited installed 80-thousand linear feet of terraces at a total cost of $4.7 million dollars, which rates as modest by coastal restoration standards.
It butts up against much larger state projects to restore part of the Caminada Headland running between Fourchon and Grand Isle.
“It’s really kind of eating the elephant a bit at a time,” Lejeune said. “What we do alone isn’t moving the needle, but when we work with together with other entitities and agencies and organizations, we can make a difference.”
The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on larger projects nearby, including beach restoration and marsh creation.
“You’re looking at north of half-a-billion dollars that have been invested just if you look a mile this way or two miles that way,” Maloz said.
The newly restored land provides a critical stopping point for migratory birds, according the Erik Johnson, Director of Conservation Science for the Audubon Louisiana.
“Billions of birds are relying on this coastal habitat in order to protect themselves against really bad weather that they sometimes hit.”
Johnson said even small amounts of land can be life saving for birds that have made a long and perilous journey across the Gulf of Mexico.
“This is how we protect our protection,” Maloz said. “This really the epitome of the multiple lines of defense. It starts at our shoreline, it starts at the barrier islands.”
As Port Fourchon ballooned in size in recent decades, dredging canals and building new boat slips, it was required by law to mitigate for the damage.
“We’ve done above and beyond mitigation as well because it’s the right thing to do and it’s what we need to do to sustain or heritage, our culture, and our economic way of life,” Chaisson said.
The state’s coastal master plan includes large-scale marsh creation projects on both sides of Bayou Lafourche.
“We cannot take our foot off the gas,” Maloz said. “We have to keep investing in coastal Louisiana.”
One project area covering a footprint of 29,000 acres from Fourchon to Leeville would exceed $1 billion in cost.
Although the project would significantly restore marsh in an area seeing some of the most dramatic land loss, advocates concede it could probably only be built in phases.
