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NEWS

Local coastal project gets boost

Emma Discher Staff Writer

A freshwater diversion project in Terrebonne Parish will receive nearly $16.4 million of Louisiana’s $245 million portion of money for coastal restoration projects across the state.

For the fourth year, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation transferred money from its Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund to the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. The projects are targeted as part of Louisiana’s Comprehensive Masterplan for a Sustainable Coast.

Freshwater and sediment will be redirected from the Atchafalaya River to build up wetlands within the Terrebonne Basin. Over 50 years, the project is expected to reduce wetland loss by nearly 13,000 acres. The money will move the project into the engineering and design phase.

Simone Maloz, executive director of Thibodaux-based Restore or Retreat, a local coastal advocacy group, said the project complements the work underway for the Houma Navigation Canal lock project.

She added that the Barataria and Terrebonne basins have some of the highest rates of land loss.

“We are conveniently located nowhere near a freshwater or sediment source,” Maloz said. “We’re kind of wedged between the Atchafalaya River and Mississippi River. ... That’s why introducing freshwater into those marshes in Terrebonne is so important because that entire system in the future without action collapses.”

In addition to the Atchafalaya project, $102 million was allocated to the second phase of the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion project that will influence parts of Lafourche Parish, especially Grand Isle.

That project will move into the engineering and design stages. Once finished it is expected to introduce 150 million tons of sediment into the Barataria Basin over 50 years.

-Staff Writer Emma Discher can be reached at 448-7636 or emma.discher@houmatoday.com. Follow her on Twitter @emmadischer.