Volunteers try to restore cypress swamp

Photo credit: Katelyn Clift Forsberg

Darryl Malek-Wiley, Sierra Club’s local organizing representative, has lived in New Orleans since 1982, but never heard about Bayou Bienvenue till after Hurricane Katrina.

Older Lower Ninth Ward residents remember the freshwater cypress swamp from the time they were children in the 1950s, he said, but many others didn’t know it was there.

“There were rumors of snakes and alligators and many people were afraid to go,” recalled John Taylor, wetland specialist for the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development (CSED), who has spent his entire life near the place that once was a dense cypress-tupelo swamp.

As kids, Taylor and his brothers would sneak over to explore the bayou. After a while, their mother stopped worrying.

“I made money catching rabbits, snapping turtles and nutria for the hide,” he said. “I could go in the swamp and make more money than my daddy did.”

The Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle, a 427-acre body of open water, was the “back of town,” a natural wonderland where residents could survive off hunting and fishing.  The bayou is all that remains of a once great Mississippi River Delta swamp extending from New Orleans to Lake Borgne.

“When I was a boy, you didn’t need a paddle for the boat. The trees were so close together, you could pull yourself by grabbing a tree,” Taylor said.

In 1956, the construction of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MRGO) Canal was authorized by an Act of Congress to create a shorter shipping route between the Port of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, but also changed the bayou’s fresh water to brackish.

“Salt water intrusion killed the vegetation, including the cypress trees, and eliminated protection from high winds, water surges and wakes,” Taylor said. Loss of the cypress trees made the Lower Ninth Ward more vulnerable to flooding from hurricanes.

After Hurricane Katrina, a surge barrier and a rock dam closed the MRGO canal, halting the influx of salt water and allowing restoration of the ecosystem to begin.

“That’s gonna be the laboratory and we’re going to figure out how to fix this,” Taylor said of the complex environmental project. “Once we fix that, we’ll know how to fix the rest.”

Several community groups are actively working to restore natural vegetation through labor-intensive and experimental projects. Common Ground Relief has shifted its focus from home construction to wetlands restoration.

Photo credit: John Taylor

James Stram, Common Ground Relief's wetlands project manager, supervises cypress tree plantings in wooden boxes placed in the shallow water. Without protection, nutria or rabbits would quickly devour the young plants.

Last month, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and The Sierra Club organized 31 volunteers to plant 6,000 plugs of California bulrush grass in an effort to prevent further erosion and create wildlife habitat.

In 2007, community groups and volunteers built a 30-foot wide, wooden viewing platform so environmentalists, tourists, volunteers, legislators and celebrities could bear witness to the degraded swamp with cypress “ghosts” and open water that still host abundant wildlife. A new, interpretative sign was recently erected at the platform.

“It has become an incredibly powerful spot to get an environmental perspective on the city’s woes,” said Joshua Lewis, a research analyst for the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research. There is a multibillion-dollar plan to restore the damage done by the MRGO, but no funding, he said.

Taylor spends much of his days standing on the platform, giving informal tours. “That place is full of birds in the summer, but the species have changed,” said.

He paddles his pirogue to the other side to observe and photograph wildlife.

“Wetlands are restorative,” Taylor said.

This story was originally published in the New Orleans Advocate.

Conservationists protect cypress-tupelo swamp

Conservation groups' purchase will preserve 675 acres of Maurepas Swamp

 Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

A consortium of conservation groups has arranged the purchase of 675 acres of cypress-tupelo swamp bordering the town of Maurepas, assuring its protection as a refuge for migratory waterfowl, neotropical songbirds and several species of ducks. Saving the trees from logging also protects them as a hurricane storm surge and wind barrier for nearby communities.

Higher ground on the properties in rural Livingston Parish also protects part of a land bridge used by Louisiana black bears migrating between the Atchafalaya River delta and forested areas to the north.

The three properties were purchased by the Conservation Fund from the Fritchie family, Canal Land Co. and Bilten LLC, and then sold to the Land Trust of Southeast Louisiana for about $1 million. The Conservation Fund connects willing landowners with conservation organizations and federal agencies, purchasing wildlife habitat with its own money and then getting repaid by the buyers.

In the Maurepas Swamp, property owners wanting to clear-cut cypress have run into problems in recent years with the Army Corps of Engineers, which has prohibited building log roads through wetlands, and with environmentalists intent on saving cypress from being turned into garden mulch.

“Buying property through these types of measures means circumventing the head-to-head conflicts between landowner and regulatory agencies, particularly as related to cypress logging,” said Ray Herndon, Louisiana state director with the Conservation Fund.

The land trust used a $1 million bird conservation grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to acquire the property. The grant allows the area to become part of the National Audubon Society’s West Pontchartrain-Maurepas Swamp Important Bird Area Habitat Conservation project.

The original landowners retain mineral rights for at least 10 years, but there are no plans to explore for oil or gas, said Dr. Jay Addison, president of the land trust. No forestry will be allowed on the property, except to remove invasive species, he said.

The trust, created in 2004 and based in Hammond, owns or controls 2,500 acres in Louisiana, including the 9 Mile Island property at Lake St. Catherine in eastern New Orleans.

The Maurepas wetland properties abut the state’s 68,000-acre Lake Maurepas Wildlife Management Area, which was established in the late 1990s with assistance from the Conservation Fund. The fund added 1,700 acres to the management area in 2009.

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While this latest acquisition is small, compared with the 100,000 acres of cypress-tupelo forest already protected in Maurepas Swamp, keeping higher land along Chinquapin canal from being developed assures that protected wetlands to the east and south will not be fragmented, said Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the Gulf of Mexico for the National Audubon Society.

“The 675 acres is a critical parcel within the larger conservation landscape for many of the birds we’re interested in,” Driscoll said. Many of the species, including several that are threatened or endangered, need large areas not affected by development for both feeding ranges and breeding areas, she said.

Migratory waterfowl using the area as a resting stop during their migration and as a wintering ground include northern pintail, lesser scaup, and mottled and mallard ducks.

For hunters, protecting the land both guarantees their catch and a continued economic benefit from their hunting, she said.

The new property and another 800 acres nearby will protect 3,800 breeding pairs of the prothonotary warbler, considered the “canary” of the swamp and a rapidly declining species, and 3,500 breeding pairs of the northern parula, also believed to be in decline. It also will protect 200 breeding pairs of the painted bunting.

Other species found in the cypress swamp include the yellow-throated warbler, yellow-billed cuckoo and wood thrush.

The area also is used by species more likely to be recognized by Louisianans, including white ibis, bald eagle, little blue and green herons; and those rarely seen, including king and yellow rails and least bitterns.

More acquisitions of Maurepas Swamp land are likely, Herndon said, making it a hot spot for both conservation and wetland restoration efforts.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Lafitte: pirate or privateer?

It is terribly hot now, so I've been feeling like a prisoner in my home, unwilling to go out for long unless I can make it to an air-conditioned place real quick.

Saturday morning, however, I decided to take advantage of the 10 a.m. park ranger-guided tour in Jean Lafitte National Historical Park swamp about a half hour away. A surprising number of others were waiting at the trailhead, apparently with the same need to get out into nature but under some shade. The ranger took us on a trail I'd already experienced but without the narrative. I learned a few new things.

First off, not everybody feared Lafitte nor considered him a problem. When Thomas Jefferson outlawed luxury imports, Lafitte brought those items in through the bayou's mysterious waterways. You could take a boat south of New Orleans to purchase a few slaves, recently imported from Africa, silk or a new crystal chandelier. When the authorities arrived, Lafitte would quickly disappear into the dense growth. (Sounds a bit like Wall Street traders.) There's no longer a natural outlet to the river, so we now get our black market goods other ways.

The first stop on our tour was a shell mound, basically the garbage dump of early native Americans, but minus the styrofoam and plastic bottles. They ate a lot of freshwater clams as well as crawfish, catfish and perch. We moved from hardwood forest to swamp and marsh and then into an open area where a canal had been dug to move cypress logs and when those were all gone, oil.

frog

There were frogs sleeping in the water as well as a couple of lethargic alligators, their eyes peeping out from the vegetation. Though you could see only their snouts, it was apparent they were 7 - 8-ft. in length. The ranger warned us not to taunt them - they can move at least 30 mph on land.

After a couple-mile walk, the temperature was more than I could tolerate and the bugs were reminding me why I live in the urban area. I don't know how those early settlers survived the summer months.

Barataria Swamp

jzak's Full Review 04/01/00: Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

I traveled down to New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year, and one of the most fascinating parts of our vacation was a swamp tour that my fiance and her family went on.

On a sunny day last month, we ventured down to the Barataria unit of Jean Lafitte National Historical Park. We were taken on a tour by Captain Cyrus, one of the unique inhabitants of the swamp and a lifelong resident of Barataria.

Everyone who comes to Louisiana can't miss this amazing opportunity to view the nature and history of the Barataria swamp.

We boarded the riverboat at noon. The Captain began to tell us about the history, people, nature and wildlife of the swamp. Toward the right, we could see a washed up riverboat, its rusty hull protruding from the water. As we proceeded down the open area of the swamp, numerous birds, heron and others, were settling on the lake in the noontime sun. He showed us the shrimp traps that the residents use to make their livelihoods with. We began to make a turn into one of the bayous, and hundreds of cypress trees lined the shores, their long moss hanging down so low that you can almost touch them. About this time, we head into another remote area, and we see Captain Cyrus' "friends", two huge alligators, rising up out of the water!

In order to entice them toward the boat, the Captain whistles to them, then throws marshmallows into the water! We saw several alligators during our swamp tour, and all of the people on the boat were very excited to see these amazing animals.

From the standpoint of a lifelong resident of the swamp, the Captain told us about the history of the area as well, about Jean Lafitte and the swamp pirates who dwelled here during the War of 1812. Someone asked him about Jean Lafitte and buried treasure, and his tone became cynical.

The captain thought that the buried treasure story was a way of attracting unwanted interest in the swamp, and believed that all it did was disturb the history of the area. He told us that most films made in Louisiana, such as the "Interview with a Vampire" and "Forrest Gump," are made in the Barataria. For example, the scene in "Forest Gump" were Forest crashes his shrimp boat into the dock was filmed here. He said that the filmmakers destroyed the old dock, but that it wasn't so bad because the residents "got a new dock out of the deal."

Finally, we wound toward the end of our journey, and toward our right, a large above-ground cemetary lay on top of the hilly shoreline. He told us that all of Barataria's residents are buried here, often with some relatives buried above ground on top of others in their families. The ornate gravestones and cemetary were a unique fixture in the swamp, and are a testament to the peoples, cultures and history of the Barataria.

At the very end of our journey, the Captain gently guided the boat back into the dock, and it was over. Everyone clapped for the Captain. More importantly, Captain Cyrus showed us that the Barataria Swamp is a beautiful, largely untouched area. He showed us why he loved the Barataria so much, and how he wanted others to enjoy it as we were.

If you are ever down in Louisiana, make a point to go on a swamp tour with Captain Cyrus. He'll show you around the swamp, and maybe...just maybe...you'll even get to see an alligator or two!