Coastal protection project to begin in St. Mary

Work is slated to begin within a few weeks to install concrete rings along a 4,000-foot stretch of the St. Mary Parish coastline, aimed at preventing further coastal erosion.
In a couple of weeks, work should begin to install about 2,000 concrete rings at Point Chevreuil, engineer Tyler Ortego of Metairie said Wednesday. This coastal protection work is a St. Mary Parish government project paid for by coastal impact systems program funds, Ortego said.
The project consists of placing OysterBreak units along 4,000 feet of shoreline. OysterBreak is a concrete ring design that allows sediment buildup to protect the coast. Ortego, who is one of the patent holders for OysterBreak and OysterKrete products, works for Wayfarer Environmental Technologies in New Iberia. The company has a license to produce the products.
OysterKrete is a porous concrete conducive to the attachment of oysters, creating a so-called living shoreline, Michael Turley, owner of Wayfarer Environmental Technologies said in April 2014. At that time, the company was bidding on the Point Chevreuil project.
“OysterBreak is the regular concrete. There’s no OysterKrete in this (project),” Ortego said.
OysterKrete cannot be used to grow oysters at Point Chevreuil because it’s a freshwater coastline.
“This area’s got the Atchafalaya River and Wax Lake Outlet right there, so there’s so much fresh water that it would be overpowered,” Ortego said.
For the Point Chevreuil project, the shape of the concrete rings is what allows accumulation of sediment.
Though the structures at Point Chevreuil will not be able to grow oysters, a proposal is included in the 2012 state master plan for a “big oyster reef” between the Vermilion and Atchafalaya bays.
The purpose of the Point Chevreuil project is “to knock down wave energy to keep the point from eroding further,” Ortego said.
The contractor for the Point Chevreuil project is Professional Construction Services in Houma.
Each concrete ring is about 5 feet in diameter and weighs 1,500 pounds when stacked two high. The rings link together “like big, round LEGOs,” he said.
Placing the rings at Point Chevreuil should take about a month.
The Point Chevreuil project will be the ninth such project Wayfarer Environmental Technologies has done in Louisiana. The company completed one at Rockefeller Refuge, two in the Gulf in Vermilion Parish and three in Vermilion Bay for the nature conservancy.
In 2010, the first project using the OysterBreak and OysterKrete products was completed in Vermilion Bay. The OysterBreak and OysterKrete installations “are definitely protecting the shorelines,” Ortego said.
Most of the installations are growing oysters, and all of the installations “are accreting good sediment so they’re protecting that shoreline,” he said.

This story was written by Zachary Fitzgerald of the Daily Review. Reach him at zfitzgerald@daily-review.com