It is a part of the Bay's heritage and must be a part of its future. I receive the Bay Journal and have noted that many of the issues in your region are similar to ones in southern Louisiana, including nutria. The Mississippi River Delta and the Chenier Plain are extremely valuable pieces of landscape. During the 20th century, land loss rates approached 25 square miles a year with the greatest losses found in an area within the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program. Louisiana has 40 percent of all vegetated coastal wetlands in the contiguous United States yet is experiencing 80 percent of the nation's coastal wetlands loss.
Vegetative plantings replace plant life lost through water ponding, erosion and saltwater intrusion.
The Bayou LaBranche area is an important marsh complex on the south shore of Lake Ponchartrain west of New Orleans. This expanse of intermediate and brackish marshes provides important nursery habitat for fish and shellfish in the lake. The area has been deteriorating for years, and today much of what were once vital wetlands has been turned into open water. The project consisted of confining about 500 acres of the area with retention dikes. Engineers then used a cutterhead dredge to pump about 2.5 million cubic yards of sediment onto the site from the bottom of Lake Ponchartrain.