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Restoration Activities
Case: Westchester, LA
Project Description
A crevasse was dredged in the South Pass of the Mississippi River, Plaquemines
Parish, Louisiana. The restoration will replace marsh that was injured by the
incident, provide wildlife and estuarine nursery habitat, and promote storm and
erosion protection. To compensate for lost recreational use of the Mississippi
River during the incident, the trustees chose to increase access to the natural
resources in the Mississippi River Delta by constructing a boat dock at a
nearby reservoir, upgrading an existing boat ramp, and improving access and
public camping grounds.
Project Details of the Crevasse
During September 2003, the responsible party dredged a crevasse in a levee to create a freshwater diversion in the Birdfoot Delta. Emergent plant species characteristic of splay marshes, such as
Sagittaria ssp. and Scirpus ssp., are expected to populate at least 4.7 acres of newly created marsh by September 2006. Monitoring of the project is ongoing. Freshwater diversion projects have become instrumental in countering the high rate of subsidence and land loss in the Mississippi River Delta by providing sediment needed for land accretion and marsh creation.
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