Floating Islands Project: Restoring Coastal Wetlands

The first phase of Floating Islands was the Isle deJean Charles Project in Point Aux Chene, completed in 2011.  Phase II of the Isle deJean Charles project followed in 2013. In 2015, CCA and partners joined forces to build more than 1000 linear feet of islands off Highway 1 near Grand Isle.  In 2018, islands were installed in Vermilion Bay not far from Cypremort Point Landing and the second phase were built in the spring of 2019. In the fall of 2019, the first islands were installed to help rebuild the coastline near Prien Lake in Lake Charles with phase II being added on in the spring of 2022.

In all, nearly 20,000 square feet of new marsh has been created by CCA to create habitat and fortify marshland that had been devastated by years of erosion and storms. These projects are the first to use this technology, developed by Martin EcoSystems, in an open-water marine environment application.  In some cases, the “floating island marsh” has even outperformed the surrounding natural marsh.

The projects have been spearheaded by the CCA’s Building Conservation Habitat Program and its many partners including: Shell Oil Company, Phillips 66, Martin Ecosystems, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and area parish governments where the islands are built. Each build is done by area CCA and conservation partner volunteers and are partnered with service projects with area elementary, middle and high schools.