Floating island going in at Isle de Jean Charles

One of the hardest hit communities in Terrebonne Parish in terms of loss of coastal marshland over the decades has been Isle de Jean Charles. Now the community of approximately 230 people on a small finger of land between Bayou Terrebonne and Bayou Pointe-aux-Chenes will be the first in the nation to have an innovative effort implemented next week to address coastal restoration.

America’s Wetland Foundation, in concert with the Coastal Conservation Association, Terrebonne Parish Coastal Management Office, Entergy, Shell, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and more than 200 corporate sponsors, local schools and youth groups have pooled financial support and volunteer services to address coastal restoration with an innovative planting program.

Making use of floating island technology, developed and manufactured by Martin Ecosystems of Baton Rouge, volunteers will converge on the area Sept. 22-24 to install 1,500 linear feet of prefabricated floating island mats, filled with native grasses and anchored in position to enhance the filling in of sediment and aqua-foliage. The restoration effort is expected to produce results in a little more than one year.

“This is a sensitive area that has seen a lot of marsh degradation over time,” Terrebonne Coastal Restoration Director Nick Matherne said. “What we are looking to do is a multi-faceted approach project. The floating islands we have been putting in have been shown in certain environments to not only protect shoreline, but to improve water quality.”

While the floating islands have been used along shorelines in other parts of Louisiana, including along the South Lafourche Levee, the Isle de Jean Charles project will be the first time these islands have been placed at the aggressive distance of 100 feet from existing shorelines.

According to Martin Ecosystems, this effort in Terrebonne Parish could launch a new weapon in the multiple lines of offense toward coastal restoration.

Floating island technology makes use of recycled plastics to build a frame in which plants are positioned with room to grow downward in the water and take root in the natural soil while in an anchored position.

Each floating island is 5 feet by 8 feet and 8 inches thick with 77 folds and between 50 and 60 plants. Islands are generally anchored next to existing land to curtail erosion and wave action. In time, new land and vegetation is grown in the gaps left between the natural and installed growths.

A spokesperson with Martin Ecosystems was not able to immediately provide the cost of construction and installation of the floating islands.

America’s Wetland Foundation Senior Policy Advisor Sidney Coffee said coastal restoration efforts led by this organization has been set apart from typical environmental concerns because their efforts have attracted not only environmentalists, but participation from members of the oil and gas industry and shipping corporations.

“The genesis of this is that in each community we go into we like to have a component actively platting an area for putting reality to restoration,” Coffee said. “It is more than just forums. We want to actually help certain areas as far as restoration goes.”

Coffee said this opportunity to work with the residents of Isle de Jean Charles is unique, just as every coastal community is being addressed on an individual basis. “It’s a fairly experimental process in building these floating islands and this is a great place to try it,” she said. “This community has been told that the [U.S. Army] Corps of Engineers cannot protect them. So, this is a very good place we think to pitch in and help and maybe have success that will pay off in the long run.”

Funding for the floating island project has been secured through public and private contributions. Coffee said responses thus far have been positive but could not say how much was raised for this specific project.

“America’s Wetland Foundation has been having these Blue Ribbon forums in communities along the Gulf Coast,” AWF Project Manager Buddy Boe said. “With each one we try to a planting in the area or some sort of shoring. The Terrebonne Parish Coastal Management Office was already working toward a planting, so we joined forces.”

The Isle de Jean Charles project has already been designated as being the largest thus far in the state. “While we are planting [next week] it will be 5-feet deep and 1,500 feet wide. Some areas will be stacked and some areas lined up like a train,” Boe said.

Island Road itself will be lined by the floating islands to grow a marsh mass where water and rock now exists. The plan will also protect natural marsh by not being subject to wave erosion.

Agencies, businesses or volunteers wanting to participate in the floating island planting at Isle de Jean Charles may contact Boe at (504) 293-2610.

“The Gulf Coast has never been a real unified region like the states around the Chesapeake Bay and the Great Lakes and some of these other great eco systems that have spoken and gained power as a region,” Coffee said. “The Gulf Coast has never really worked as a region. We have made that one of our main goals.”

“We will basically be building an island where a natural land island can grow,” Boe said. “Eventually we will be extending a floating island chain out into open water and extending the marsh line where land use to be. The truly experimental part of this project is where we are going out into open marsh and rebuild land. This will allow more terracing to collect more silt and have backfill occur.”

“They have normally [positioned these islands] much closer,” Matherne said. “This is the first time this method has been used.”

The residents of Isle de Jean Charles have lived off the natural resources of the disappearing marshland for generations, area elders say. It is their hope that this revolutionary effort will restore their way of life from damage cause by past industrial abuses, human neglect and damages from nature. These people have been hard hit, and with a little help from others they intend to strike back for their own preservation through coastal restoration.

Floating islands are being constructed and may offer part of the answer to coastal restoration in Louisiana. The miniature landmasses are man-made ecosystems that mimic naturally occurring wetlands. COURTESY PHOTO