Golden Meadow is a town along Bayou Lafourche in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, where something unexpected has happened.
Over 30 feet of new marsh now separates portions of the ring levee system from the Gulf. Just five years ago, the area was completely under water.
“Before 2010, you’d have to be Jesus to do this,” south Lafourche Levee Director Windell Curole said as he walked through knee-high marsh grass.
The new marsh is the unexpected result of an adjoining $2.3 million ecological restoration project, originally designed to build about 50 acres of marsh in a contained area.
Since the project was completed in late 2010, the contained area has filled in with marsh grass, and acres of material have expanded beyond the contained system where it continues to grow.