Common Ground Continues to Preserve Louisiana Wetlands

by Kate Marvin
photography by Mavis Yorks

This month, twelve Common Ground volunteers and two media teams went on a planting mission at Lake Cataouatche. This mission is part of a continuing planting project designed to reverse some of the damage done to the wetlands prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and provide a sustainable restoration program to protect the city from future hurricanes.

For over a year, members of Common Ground’s Wetlands Restoration program have been working with a division of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry to restore the wetlands through small scale vegetative planting. Together, these organizations pick sites, plant, and monitor the survival of plants in the wetlands.

Common Ground has focused on planting smooth cord grass, cypress trees, and other native wetlands plants. Last Thursday’s project -- planting bulwhip, also known as bulrush, a deep-water plant often used in coastal restoration projects for erosion control. Bulwhip has a comprehensive network of rhizomes and forms dense colonies. It traps sediment, buffers wave action from boats, and helps soil accumulate, providing better growing conditions for other vegetation along the shoreline.

Not only does this vegetation prevent erosion - it actually shields the city from hurricanes.

“It’s the first line of defense against a hurricane, even before levees,” says Zeraph Moore, a representative from Common Ground’s Wetlands Restoration Project, “Without wetlands, levees can’t do their job.”

According to Moore, saltwater intrusion from industrial canals kills freshwater plants. As a result, the wetlands sink and disappear into the Gulf. “When a hurricane comes through the Mississippi Gulf Outlet, there’s nothing to stop it from breaching the levee. There are no plants, no trees in the way,” explains Moore, “it just rips across open water, slams into the levee, and it breaks it.”

Common Ground’s Wetlands Restoration Project continues to do plantings and outreach to volunteers, high school students, and community members in an effort to save the Louisiana wetlands, shield endangered ecosystems, and protect New Orleans.