HOUMA, LA (AP) — For those involved with coastal Louisiana restoration and protection, a law that funnels federal money to local projects has been a model for cooperation between federal, state and local entities.
Money from the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act, which has grown from about $30 million to nearly $80 million annually, helps pay for projects benefiting wetlands.
Chip Kline, chairman of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, tells The Courier’s Meredith Burns since its inception in 1990, money has gone to restoring 112,000 acres of land and protecting more than 350,000 acres in Louisiana.
Locally, the money has helped build 1,200 acres of land on Whiskey Island off Terrebonne Parish and is going toward restoring about 438 acres of degraded wetland behind the Caminada Headland southeast of Port Fourchon in Lafourche Parish.
