(225) 755-1000
(225) 252-6526Wetlands Mitigation and Restoration
In addition to negotiating mitigation for all of its Section 404/Coastal Use permitting clients, C-K has provided turnkey consulting services needed to establish six large mitigation areas. These areas include over 3,000 acres of bottomland hardwood and bald cypress in St. Charles and Livingston Parishes, Louisiana, and over 1,000 acres of non-coastal bottomland hardwood areas in East Baton Rouge and Livingston Parishes, Louisiana, and in White County, Arkansas. Several mitigation banks are planned within south Louisiana. These include a 500-acre site for a client in East Baton Rouge Parish, a 200-acre coastal bottomland hardwood forest in Terrebonne Parish, and a 2,000-acre fresh marsh in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. C-K provided all of the planning, development, field expertise, agency coordination and documentation needed to complete these projects.
Wetlands restoration involves repairing the elements of wetland habitats (soils, vegetation, hydrology) and recovering functions and values (water quality improvement, flood prevention, biodiversity) that have been impaired as a result of activities such as pipeline or road construction, maintenance dredging of drainageways or waterways, natural erosion or coastal land loss, agricultural land use, the construction of commercial docks or piers, or the unauthorized clearing and filling of forested wetlands. Because of our extensive Section 404/Coastal permitting experience, C-K has expertise in all areas associated with restoration including field services, bid specifications, construction oversight, vegetative planting, and monitoring reports. As a prime example, C-K has developed a comprehensive wetlands restoration and enhancement plan for the Bayou Trepagnier Natural Resource Damage Assessment within the LaBranche wetlands on the south shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain. Planning for the restoration included constructing a hydrodynamic model for a 2,300-acre subbasin and designing a freshwater input channel into degrading wetlands.