Common Ground Wetlands Restoration Project Accomplishments

Wetlands

Since June 2006 the Common Ground Wetlands Restoration Project has achieved a great deal in restoring precious Wetlands and Coastal regions while at the same time raising awareness of an issue that has been largely ignored by the media. Wetlands play a crucial role in both the region’s biodiversity and in lessening the impact of flooding on local environments. The Gulf Coast area had been losing wetlands at a rate of 16,000 acres a year prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the aftermath of those disasters left hundreds of miles of coastal wetlands already in peril from development and engineering projects devastated, endangering local wildlife and leaving the area more vulnerable to further damage. The Wetlands Restoration Project has led and assisted efforts in both restoration and education in the hopes that the wetlands can be restored in an effective and sustainable fashion.

The Common Ground Wetlands Restoration Project’s accomplishments in the last ten months have been numerous and varied. These accomplishments include planting over 11,500 clumps of smooth cord grass, a species that helps prevent erosion, throughout coastal Louisiana. The Project also led an effort to recycle Christmas trees in Laffite, La.,using them to construct cribs and build a wall that will help break wave action and prevent erosion. Common Ground volunteers have also been assisting with the planting of over 6,500 cypress trees in the Louisiana wetlands.

On April 3rd Common Ground volunteers worked in the Lafreniere Park Wetlands removing Chinese Tallow Trees, an invasive non-native species that can become toxic to other plants when the leaves decay. At the same time volunteers re-integrated cypress trees and other native wetlands species along the shoreline.

The Wetlands Project has organized hundreds of volunteers to restore shorelines in Bayou Materie, Bayou St. John and the City Park Lagoon system. Volunteers have continued to work in City Park restoring and maintaining a wetlands plant material greenhouse and assisted with wetlands debris pick up in critical nesting grounds for migratory birds. The project has also begun research on effective ways to use tactics of bioremediation to deal with oil spills within wetlands regions, focusing on the Murphy Oil spill, which dumped over a million gallons of oil into adjacent residential and wetlands areas in St. Bernard Parish.

In the areas of education and awareness, the Wetlands Project has worked with groups beyond Louisiana, giving informative power point presentations to increase national awareness of the current conditions and the critical role of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands. Locally, Common Ground has received a grant to begin wetlands education in New Orleans schools, providing classrooms with equipment to conduct effective science lessons. Wetlands Project volunteers have also assisted with educational canoe trips that bring students from Jefferson and Orleans Parishes to Louisiana wetlands, helping them gain a greater appreciation of their environment and the issues it faces.

Google Map of Common Ground Wetlands Project Activity

Home Locations (yellow markers), Planting Locations (green markers), and Areas of Concern (red markers) are indicated.

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Photo Albums

Lower Ninth Ward Wetlands Nursery

Bulrush Planting on Lake Cartouche - July 12 2007

Common Ground Wetlands Little Lake Planting - April 5th 2007

Wetlands project working at the Audubon Louisiana Nature Center

Audio Files

Laura, Wetlands Restoration Coordinator talk about the wetlands project