The sediment pipeline project involves building a structure over
the Mississippi River levee that will cross under Louisiana
Highway 23 and a railroad, which will stay in place. A
contractor will then build a pipeline that will go south and
southwest from the river to support the Bayou Dupont Ridge
Creation and Marsh Restoration project and the Long Distance
Sediment Pipeline project in Jefferson and Plaquemines parishes.
“We’re going to take sand out of the river and put it where it’s
needed,” said Kenneth Bahlinger, state Coastal Protection and
Restoration Authority project manager. About 8.2 million cubic
yards of material will be mined from the river. Although there
are three borrow sites in the river that have been permitted,
it’s estimated the projects will only require the use of one of
those sites, Bahlinger said. It will take about two years to
complete the projects. “It mimics what Mother Nature is doing in
the first place,” Bahlinger said of how the river used to build
land along the coast before t