Bayou Lafourche project will help save our coast

There’s good news along our waterfront. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s promise to get going on work to preserve the Louisiana coast along the Gulf of Mexico seems to be bearing fruit.

Plans are being made to dredge Bayou Lafourche and allow fresh water from the Mississippi River to flow down into our eroding wetlands. In addition to bringing drinking water to people who live along its banks, it will also help to freshen up our marshes and swamps which are so important in protecting us from storm surges.

Jindal announced a while back that he wanted to get started on many coastal restoration projects next year. So we are hoping there will be many more such announcements to come.

Bayou Lafourche could become a natural diversion project like Davis Pond Diversion Project in St. Charles which the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has finally gotten to work. It could feed a large area of coastal wetlands in southern St. Charles, Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes with the fresh water needed to keep them intact.

The bayou had become clogged up with debris with the recent hurricanes and what water was put into it from the river did not achieve its full benefit. The $20 million dredging project is planned to clear the way to get it into areas where it is needed.

Hopefully, there will be many more such projects started next year as the governor promised. We have a long way to go in preserving our coast. We’ve spent too much time in studying and planning and not enough in doing. It’s time to get going.