Louisiana Coastal Impact Assistance Plan - Coastal Protection and ...

3. Barrier Shoreline Restoration and Protection
Louisiana’s barrier shorelines are eroding rapidly as a result of wave erosion,
subsidence, sea level rise, and human alteration of sediment transport
processes. This Plan feature includes:
a. accelerated restoration of the East Grand Terre Island component of the
Barataria Basin barrier shoreline complex. This essentially construction-ready
project was designed with Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and
Restoration Act (CWPPRA) funds, and is part of an unfunded backlog of
numerous CWPPRA projects. Plaquemines Parish has indicated its
willingness to share in the cost of this project with the State; and
b. a CWPPRA designed shoreline protection demonstration project along
the rapidly eroding Gulf of Mexico marsh shoreline of Rockefeller Wildlife
Management Area and Game Preserve. Erosion in this area is occurring at the
expense of the adjacent marshes.
4. Interior Shoreline Protection
Severe shoreline erosion is occurring along major navigation canals and lake
shorelines in Louisiana. Many of these (i.e., those along navigation canals)
are artificial shorelines that cause problems due to lack of operation and
maintenance funds to reduce wetland impacts. The Plan includes the
following projects to address these issues:
a. installation of bank protection along portions of Freshwater Bayou
Navigation Channel, where wake erosion primarily from OCS support vessels
and the resultant saltwater intrusion both threaten adjacent fresh marshes;
b. placement of shoreline protection measures along critical reaches of the
GIWW in Terrebonne Parish, to reduce erosion of highly sensitive floating
freshwater marshes. Knowledge gained from the Mandalay National Wildlife
Refuge erosion protection demonstration project would be applied to the
proposed project’s design. This project represents a segment of a construction
ready but unfunded CWPPRA project;
c. installation of a CWPPRA designed breakwater to prevent erosion of
the southern shoreline of Grand Lake and the adjacent coastal marshes located
in the lower Mermentau River Basin; and
d. implementation of the third and final phase of the Lake Salvador
Shoreline Protection Project, through cost-sharing with St. Charles Parish.
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