Port Fourchon, La. - It doesn't look like much from the water but a small stretch of land is a big deal to Lafourche Parish.
The West Belle Pass protects Port Fourchon but the area barely existed one year ago.
"They're literally shaping the material and then they fill in an open body of water essentially and so when this is complete, we can stand on an area that didn't have any kind of land a couple months ago," says Simone Maloz, executive director of Restore or Retreat.
The project started more than a decade ago when parish officials first applied for state and federal funding. The constant crashing of waves and a number of storms since then chewed away even more coastline.
"We see a historical rate of about 82 feet a year of land loss," says Archie Chaisson, administrator of Lafourche Parish's Coastal Zone Management program. "It is accelerated during storms or hurricane events. When Tropical Storm Lee came through last year, we saw about 125 feet get washed out of this area."
Now $30 million worth of sand and sediment are being pumped back in to rebuild the beach and the marsh.
The project should be complete by December and by that time, nearly 300 acres of new land will fill out the West Belle Pass.
On the other side of Port Fourchon, work will soon begin on a $70 million coastal restoration project.
Fourchon Beach has been closed since the oil spill in 2010 and Tropical Storm Lee last year caused significant erosion.
Reconstruction of the six-mile stretch of beach should be finished by 2014 and the parish hopes to reopen this beach to the public.
Without restoration projects like this, projections show Port Fourchon becoming an island in the next 50 years.
"It's going to be well over 100 million dollars in this small area in Lafourche but it's critical," says Maloz. "It's critical to the economic growth in this area and also for the whole nation. This is obviously what fuels the nation through Port Fourchon so this is a good day to be out here."
