Full steam ahead

The rumble of a 3,000 horsepower engine spewing muddy sediment out of a 30-inch pipe into a Lacombe wildlife refuge sputtered this month as two hurricanes temporarily curtailed the massive wetland restoration project.

The project, billed as a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week effort to pump 3 billion cubic yards of water and mud from the floor of Lake Pontchartrain and into the Big Branch National Wildlife refuge, via a mile long pipe, was postponed as hurricanes Gustav and Ike ripped through the area.

Now back on track, officials involved with the $21.8 million project pushed back its completion date from late September to the end of October, said Andrew Beall, project manager with the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration.

“All in all we weren’t impacted by the storms that much,” he said. “We’re making up time now.”

The project, on the drawing board since 2003, plans to dump the sediment in three areas near the mouth of the Bayou Lacombe including Goose Point and Point Platte.

In each of those areas, piles of condensed earth shaped in circles are being built to act as dikes that trap the sediment and eventually restore the marshland, 1,000 acres of which were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

The result: restoration and recreation of more than 550 acres of marsh previously lost to erosion, hurricanes and saltwater intrusion.

Covington-based Weeks Marine Inc., contracted to dredge the lake floor and pump the sediment, is building the marsh 2 to 2 1/2 feet, an optimal height for marshland. Once complete, vegetation will be planted and the dikes will leveled to help new marshland flourish.

It’s unclear how many acres, if any, were destroyed during hurricanes Gustav and Ike in the 15,000-acre refuge along the banks of Lake Pontchartrain from Mandeville to Slidell. But in the project’s target areas, little damage was noticed, Beall said.

“We only loss a little bit of material on our creation cell,” he said.

The project, part of the Coastal Wetland Planning Project Restoration Act created in 1990 is just one of dozens funded in 18 years throughout coastal areas, Beall said.

“This is old hat to us,” he said.

Beall pointed out a sure sign the project is working — Marsh mud is already bubbling to the surface, he said.