The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, which in the 1980s helped create the Christmas tree recycling projects that are now common across south Louisiana communities, is planning to deposit discarded Christmas wreaths into the water in Plaquemines Parish next year, taking a product that would otherwise be disposed of in landfills and using it instead to encourage sediment accumulation around Quarantine Bay.
The nonprofit’s partner in the project is the Francois de Lery Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. That organization is contributing more than 1,300 wreaths from Chalmette National Cemetery. They will be placed on veterans’ graves at the cemetery Dec. 16 as part of Wreaths Across America, then picked up, stacked and bagged on Jan. 13.
From there, the wreaths will be transported to CRCL’s Restoration Headquarters in Violet. University of New Orleans professor Maddie Foster-Martinez is working with her students to design and implement a project in which the wreaths will likely be strung on a rope or cable and anchored in Quarantine Bay, in the Neptune Pass outfall area. The intent is to slow down the water so that sediment settles and land builds more quickly in one of the few parts of southeast Louisiana where the Mississippi River is connected to adjacent wetlands.
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Author: BIZ New Orleans
Image: Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana