Corps awards $9M contract for marsh pipeline
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded a $9 million contract to build a permanent pipeline to carry dredged material for marsh restoration.
The pipeline will funnel the material from the Calcasieu River Ship Channel to the marshes in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes and is expected to make it easier and less expensive to restore the marshes.
The corps awarded the contract to Wilco Pipeline Contractors LLC of Rayne, La. Wilco will begin work on the 3.6 mile-long pipeline this summer and expects to complete the work in the summer of 2010.
The Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act project includes building the permanent pipeline and produce four marsh creation sites, two of which have already been constructed from material dredged from the Calcasieu River Ship Channel. The 907-acre marsh restoration effort in the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge is in Cameron Parish west of Highway 27 in large, open-water areas that had formerly been vegetated marsh.
The corps, the Louisiana Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working on plans to restore the marsh since 1999. The first marsh creation site was built in 2002.
“This area is experiencing marsh degradation from saltwater intrusion and freshwater loss,” said Fay Lachney, the corps project manager for the Sabine Refuge Marsh Creation project.
She added that by installing the permanent pipe, the corps and its partners will save $2 million each time they pump material to the marsh.
The corps will use material from maintenance dredging in the Calcasieu River Ship Channel to create at least 200 acres of new marsh each time they dredge the channel for the next 20 years, Lachney explained.
The Sabine Marsh Creation project will use the pipeline to create two more marsh sites within the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. Future dredging cycles will use the pipeline to create additional marsh sites in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes.
At the end of that time, the corps expects to have restored about 2,500 acres of marsh using dredged material from the navigation channel.
To date, the corps and the state has created about 444 acres of marsh using temporary pipes.
