An Example of Wetlands Restoration

A couple weeks ago, I went with some coworkers to Hackberry, Louisiana in Cameron Parish to view a working mitigation project. I have only heard of mitigation projects and seen them on paper, so it was really exciting to see one that is actually functioning as it should.

This mitigation project was permitted by DNR to mitigate for a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) facility very close by. Natural gas is obtained offshore and brought in by huge tankers. The company who owns the LNG facility had to mitigate for damages to wetlands caused by the HUGE containers used to hold the liquefied natural gas before it is trucked/piped off elsewhere. (That was a very dumbed down version of how it actually works since I really don't know myself!)

Part of the project required that the applicant dredge out millions of cubic yards of material for the area to be deep enough to facilitate the tankers. This material was, in turn pumped via hydraulic dredge (using a huge pipe which can go on for miles to "evenly" distribute dredged material) into a degraded marsh that was mostly open water. You'll see in my pictures what it looks like when a wetland restoration/mitigation project is done correctly.

We were taken by boat out to the sites. There were two main areas, one of which is behind the rip rap in the picture below. The areas were blocked off so that the hydraulically dredged material won't drain out, however movement of water - very important - was not completely altered. You can see the gigantic containers in the background.

The material shown behind this berm was hydraulically dredged in. The grasses growing were not planted by the applicant. They are naturally growing back in, which is wonderful!

There were lots of these strange squares of darker material around the first site. I believe that it is very organic material that was at the site before the new dredged material was pumped in. The organic material may have become buoyant and pushed its way up, or the equipment that was used during the hydraulic dredging may have caused the material underneath to push up. I'm not sure, but it's pretty cool anyway.

New wetland grasses growing where there used to be only water. The LNG land facility is in the background. It's still being built.

Lots of clams and oysters were dredged up when the port area was dredged.

The second site was adjacent to the first, but interestingly, the dredged material was more sandy. The applicant also didn't do as good a job of evenly distributing the dredged material, so the elevation of the soil was higher than it should have been. Different species of vegetation will probably grow in this area than what is growing in Area 1. They may still be wetland species, but my guess is that there will be more upland species as well, which is not what we want.

If I could remember any of my plants, I'd tell you what this one is that is spreading out by its rhizomes. Very cool!

Some of us got to go out into the sites in the air boat. That was a great way of really getting into the mitigation areas and seeing how they were working.

This bird, the American Avocet, was all over the place. According to my Sibley Guide to Birds (thank you Va and Grandpa) this species is "found in shallow, marshy or muddy ponds. American Avocet feeds by sweeping its bill side-to-side through mud or water." The water that they were feeding in had been filled in with dredged material and, as you can see, grasses are growing in!

Good sign for this marsh restoration project!

It was heartening for me to see that some good is being done in our state to replace the wetlands that are being destroyed. I have been in mitigation for a year now and this is the first time I have seen an actual working project. Not much is done to verify that mitigation projects are implemented correctly and actually work. Now if we could just prevent the destruction of wetlands in the first place, and have continuing restoration projects, we'd be in good shape!! I know...wishful thinking...