Eastern Terrebonne Landbridge – East | Coastal Restoration Project

Landbridge

Eastern Terrebonne Landbridge – East

The Eastern Terrebonne Landbridge project extends across the eastern Terrebonne marshes and will be built in two phases. The eastern component, from Bayou Lafourche to Bayou Pointe-aux-Chênes, will be constructed in the first phase, and the western and central components, from Bayou Pointe-aux-Chênes to Bayou Terrebonne, will be built in the second phase. The project’s goal is to fill all open water within the landbridge footprint, leaving only a few bayous. This approach aims to restrict water flow from Terrebonne Bay into the interior marshes, reducing salinity levels and curbing land loss.

Specifically, the landbridge project will create marshes by filling deeper areas from Bayou Pointe-aux-Chênes to the South Lafourche Levee near Catfish Lake.

The project will utilize freshwater from the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway to maintain the estuary’s salinity in the face of sea level rise and subsidence. Shoreline and channel armoring will help reduce wave erosion at Bayou Pointe aux-Chênes and Bayou Blue, restoring degraded marshes and creating new wetland habitat, including 44,000 feet of ridge habitat.

About This Project

Project ID: 335D

Parish: Lafourche, Terrebonne

Type: Landbridge

From the 2023 Coastal Master Plan

Region: Terrebonne-Atchafalaya
Parish: Lafourche and Terrebonne Parish
CMP ID: 335d
Project Type: Landbridge
CMP23 Description: Creation of marsh including filling areas deeper than 2.5 feet, from Bayou Pointe-aux-Chênes to the south Lafourche Levee near Catfish Lake. 30,000 feet of shoreline revetment to limit erosion in exposed areas and channel armoring to maintain channels at current dimensions at Bayou Pointeaux-Chênes and Bayou Blue to reduce the tidal prism and to create new wetland habitat, restore degraded marsh, and reduce wave erosion. Restoration of approximately 44,000 feet of Bayou Pointe-aux-Chênes Ridge.

CPRA Project Factsheet

What is a Landbridge Restoration Project?

Graphic by SCAPE, published in 2023 Coastal Master Plan.

Landbridges are linear tracts of constructed marshes oriented across coastal basins which provide important habitat and help attenuates waves. They include additional features to plug or constrain channels which help restore basin hydrology. These projects will help maintain the integrity of the landbridge shoreline, increase protection from storm surge and waves, improve fish and wildlife habitat and increased resiliency of coastal wetlands to erosion, subsidence and sea level rise.

Ecological Highlights

Habitats

Wildlife