Country Roads Magazine
One morning in May 2024, a well-caffeinated group of marine scientists, engineers, geologists, wildlife biologists, photographers, and journalists gathered around a pair of shallow-draft aluminum crew boats at the Ocean Springs Harbor Boat Launch. The group was there at the invitation of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority (CPRA) for a site visit to the Chandeleur Islands.
When the boats dropped anchor a quarter mile from shore, the passengers lined up to gingerly climb over the side, dropping into waist-high water for a ten-minute wade through seagrass and skittering mullet. With the outboards silenced, a rising symphony of birdcalls filled the air. “Get ready,” remarked Mike Miner, a coastal geologist with The Water Institute of the Gulf (TWIG), “you’re about to see more birds at one time than you’ve probably ever seen in your life.”
Baker said the project, which is led by CPRA and the Department of Interior and designed in collaboration with geologists, wildlife biologists, and engineers representing Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, The Water Institute of the Gulf, and Coastal Engineering Consultants, will recover nine million cubic yards of sand—enough to fill two Superdomes—from a shoal named Hughes Point that lies to the north, where much of the sand eroded from the island has been deposited in deep water. Read the full article here.