WEDA hosts webinar on West Bay project

WEDA’s webinar on Restoring the Coastal Marsh Habitat in West Bay, Louisiana with Beneficial use of Riverine Dredged Sediment, to be presented by Dr. Andrew McQueen, will begin at 2 PM EST today.

The webinar will provide an overview of the restoration efforts accomplished in West Bay, Louisiana to offset the substantial coastal land losses that threatened stability of a federal navigation channel bankline and critical marsh habitat.

West Bay is a 12,000 acre sub-delta adjacent to the Mississippi River that typifies risks of coastal land loss in Louisiana, with approximately 70% (8,000 acres) conversion from marsh to open water since the 1950s.

However, to restore habitats at the scale of projects like West Bay, sustainable approaches are needed.

Recently, the use of restoration strategies that align with Engineering with Nature^® (EWN^®) principles, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) initiative to support more sustainable practices, has made substantial progress.

Also, the objective was to document the practice of the EWN principles as reflected by the restoration of marsh habitat in West Bay which relied on an uncontrolled sediment diversion from the Mississippi River and accumulative effects of dredged sediment placement events.

Documenting progress and lessons learned of large-scale restoration projects like West Bay are crucial to the success of future restoration investments.