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BOEMRE Awards $600,000 for Louisiana Ridge, Marsh Restoration
Funds to Continue Maritime Forest Ridge Project in Lafourche Parish
NEW ORLEANS – The Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)
announced today that it has awarded a $600,000 Coastal
Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) grant to Lafourche Parish,
La. The grant will provide the remaining funding for a
project begun previously to shape sediment in a 4,000-foot
maritime ridge and associated fringe marsh near Port Fouchon,
Louisiana.
Created by
the Energy Policy Act of 2005, CIAP provides funding to the six
Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas producing states to
conserve and protect the coastal environment. CIAP is an ongoing
program with grant funding that is allocated based on the offshore
energy revenues collected by the United States.
“Marsh restoration is critical to
the state of Louisiana,” said BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich.
“We will continue to provide CIAP funds to help the state and
Lafourche Parish protect their coastal ecosystem.”
The
$600,000 grant will be used to provide the remaining funds needed to
continue a project, initiated in late 2006, that pumped sediment
into a 4,000-foot maritime forest ridge and its associated fringe
marsh. This phase of the project will shape and form the originally
pumped sediment and also provide for the planting and completion of
the vegetative component and project evaluation.
The Maritime Forest Ridge and Marsh Restoration
project is located in lower Lafourche Parish near Port Fouchon, La.,
in the Barataria Basin.
CIAP received $250 million in appropriated funds for
each of the fiscal years 2007-2010, to be disbursed to six eligible
OCS oil and gas producing states: Mississippi, Alabama, Alaska,
California, Louisiana and Texas.Contact:
BOEMRE Public
Affairs-Gulf
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