After consideration of public comments we received, Louisiana’s Phase 2 Restoration Plan/Environmental Assessment #1.3 (PDF, 159 pages) is now finalized. Released as a draft in November 2019, the plan includes a bird restoration project on Rabbit Island, and a habitat restoration project at Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve.
The final approved combined cost of the projects is approximately $37 million. These costs cover engineering and design, construction, monitoring and adaptive management, and operations and maintenance.
- The Rabbit Island project will restore 87.8 acres of the island’s original 200-acre footprint. The project will help provide more habitat for birds by raising the elevation of Rabbit Island using dredged material from the Calcasieu Ship Channel. The estimated cost of this project is approximately $16.5 million.
- The shoreline protection project at Jean Lafitte will install a rock breakwater along the eastern shorelines of Lake Salvador to improve habitat for submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). The breakwater will include several openings to improve fish passage and water quality behind the structure. Implementation is proposed in two increments, the northern and the southern portions of the affected shorelines. In the Phase 2 Restoration Plan #1.3, implementation of only the southern portion is proposed. The estimated cost for the southern portion of this project is approximately $20.5 million.
Both projects included in this plan are components of larger restoration strategies and were approved for engineering and design in the 2017 Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group Final Restoration Plan #1. This final plan is consistent with the Trustees’ programmatic restoration plan.