Scientists: Gustav did damage to wetlands

• By AMY WOLD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 7, 2008 - Page: 4B - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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It’s too early to tell exactly how much damage Hurricane Gustav might have done to wetlands in Louisiana, but there was some damage, wetland scientists said.

Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wetlands Research Center in Lafayette flew portions of the Gulf Coast on Thursday and Friday taking photos and video of wetland areas.

Finalizing the analyses of these images to quantify the damage will take some time as scientists compare the “after” Gustav photos to the “before” Gustav photos, said Chris Wells, a geographer.

On Thursday, the flight went over areas from Lafayette to Lafourche, Wells said. There was some saltwater damage to vegetation, barrier island damage and some inland marshes pushed together, he said.

In general, here is what Wells said he saw Thursday:

Starting on the west near the Atchafalaya Bay to Point au Fer Island things looked pretty good, in reference to the habitat and ecology, he said.

“There was almost no impact other than some saltwater impact,” Wells said, referring to plants damaged by saltwater storm surge. “But that’s not unusual. That kind of vegetation comes back pretty quickly.”

There was no erosion damage and very little hurricane debris, he said.

Farther east at Raccoon Island, the impact to the island looked bad from the air, he said. However, where breakwaters were built to help slow erosion, they appeared to hold some of the vegetated parts together, he said.

Outside those breakwaters, the western side of the island was under water, but it’s not known if that’s because the water is still high in the area and land will reappear when the water recedes, Wells said.

At Timbalier Island, where a lot of coastal restoration work has been done, some of the sand fences to retain material on the dunes are gone, Wells said. In addition, areas that had been planted with vegetation were still there — some covered in sand, he said.

Down at Port Fourchon, Wells said the situation looks fine from a biological point of view. The infrastructure and some homes around the port suffered lots of damage, he said, but the habitat and marsh looked fine, he said.

At Grand Isle, the live oak forest “was badly salt damaged, but the opinion around here is they will recover,” Wells said.