Environmental Group Turns to Oyster Shells to Rebuild Louisiana’s Sinking Coast

Jonathan Phillips says he thinks about the disappearance of the Louisiana coast every day.

As a commercial fisherman and member of the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe, he sees rising water levels in Plaquemines Parish. He grew up in Marrero, but spent much of his childhood in Grand Bayou Indian Village, a small community in southern Plaquemines Parish that is threatened by the effects of climate change — rising sea levels, more intense tropical storms and land loss. With the erosion of the barrier islands — which protect the wetlands from storms and saltwater intrusion — life on the bayou is becoming more precarious, said Phillips, whose parents moved back to the village after raising him in Marrero.

“As soon as the tide came up, you see the swamp floating,” Phillips told Verite News, referring to Hurricane Francine, which hit southeast Louisiana last month. “The next big storm will come and take everything away.”

Communities like Grand Bayou, located outside the federal levee system, are increasingly vulnerable to storms as the shoreline recedes.

Over the past 60 years, the land-to-water ratio in Grand Bayou has steadily declined, according to the University of New Orleans study. In 1968, there was more than twice as much land as water; now the village is mostly water. The Church, the Lumina Serii Tabernacle and the houses that make up the village are only accessible by boat. It has suffered one of the highest rates of coastal land loss in the state, based on a 2011 study published in the Journal of Coastal Research.

Phillips, who still lives in Marrero but continues to visit the village often, said Grand Bayou is his “paradise.” However, the village had changed since he was a child – the ground was higher and the marsh grass did not grow so close to the houses. As time went on and the loss of land made the storms more devastating, many people moved out of the village, including John’s family.

“It’s hard to live here and lose everything,” Phillips said. “Get up to lose everything every year. So you’re kind of forced to… move away.”

Now, to protect the community from the effects of land loss, the tribe is working with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, an environmental nonprofit, to bring life back to the area by building reefs from recycled oyster shells throughout the village.

Over four days in September, volunteers from the coalition built oyster reefs to protect areas that would otherwise be affected by erosion from high tides and storms.

Rosina Philippe, a council elder and traditional knowledge holder for the tribe who is working on coastal restoration in the area, was at the second day of the reef building project. She said growing up in the village was idyllic.

“Everything I needed was here,” she said.

But with the fracking and disappearance of the marshes, Grand Bayou has lost much of what once made life possible.

For many years, the tribesmen lived independently, surviving off the land and eking out a living through small-scale farming, fishing and bartering. In the past five to six years, they have become more dependent on food stores as land erosion and salt water intrusion have made it difficult to grow crops and raise livestock. With high salt levels in the remaining soil, dead trees are not an uncommon sight in the bayou. Philippe attributes the lack of animal life, especially birds, to the loss of marshes.

“We’re losing our habitat,” Philippe said. “We are losing colonies. There are other life forms that depend on this place, and people tend to forget that.”

Restoration of habitats

Oyster shells recycled by restaurants in New Orleans and Baton Rouge were sent to the village in mid-September. From there, volunteers loaded bags of shells onto boats and placed them along the shore to protect homes and boating areas.

The shells will support the growth of new oysters, which filter the water and are considered a keystone species because of the thriving marine community they help create. Fish and crabs use the reefs that oysters create as nurseries. When live oysters grow on them, snails and other predators come to feed. Restoration of this marine habitat can provide commercial benefits to residents.

Philippe said these types of low-tech and relatively inexpensive solutions have high success rates. The Louisiana Coastal Restoration Coalition said other reefs it has built have reduced shoreline erosion by up to 50 percent.

Part of the reef was built around Carmelita Sylve’s property. Sylvie is a lifelong resident of Grand Bayou and, like Phillips, fears that her home, community, and way of life will be lost to the water.

“(There are) a lot of waterways, and the land is disappearing,” Sylvie said. “I’m so thankful for the CRCL coming here to bring these shells to put around our properties so they can – maybe they can’t stop the erosion, but at least they can slow it down.”

The coalition has been working with the tribe since 2019. Their first project together was in 2022, when the tribe and coalition sought to protect Lemon Tree Mound, a previously raised area built by indigenous people. It is a sacred place for Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha, a place where people once made offerings to their ancestors. Two years after a reef was built around the mound, aquatic life such as snails, crabs and oysters returned to it.

On Sept. 20, the Lemon Tree Mound land was returned to the tribe by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which had acquired it through a 1991 donation as part of a trust.

In a speech to tribe and coalition volunteers, the Rev. Marian D. Fortner, of St. Paul’s, said he felt compelled to return to the land when he learned it was sacred to the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha. She said its cultural significance is “all the more reason to entrust it back, to give it back to the mother who takes care of it.” As a token of thanks, the tribe gave the church a handmade blanket.

Philippe said he hopes the repatriation of the site will spark a trend to return the land to its indigenous stewards, while encouraging solidarity between the tribe and non-indigenous people.

Future threats from LNG

Philippe’s hope is tempered by worry from a threat looming just down the road from the village. Venture Global LNG is building an LNG production and export facility in Port Sulphur, which is about 12 miles from the village.

LNG facilities have been found to pollute communities with potentially deadly chemicals such as carbon monoxide and cancer-causing molecules such as sulfur dioxide, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. Often, the construction of LNG facilities leads to the destruction of wetlands, contributing to land loss that was exacerbated by the original drilling and fossil fuel extraction practices of the last century in these same wetlands.

Al Duvernay, a Metairie resident and volunteer who helped build the reef, said he has hunted and fished in Grand Bayou waters since he was a child. He said watching the moors being destroyed before his eyes was “devastating” and “heartbreaking”.

“We watched the oil companies dredging their canals,” Duvernay said. “I mean, literally, sitting in a duck line with my dad and the dredges going through the swamp, tearing up the swamp.”

The Plaquemines LNG terminal would destroy hundreds of acres of wetlands, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s assessment. But the agency concluded that Venture Global LNG has taken steps to mitigate wetland degradation and that the impact on surrounding water and wetlands will not be significant. However, environmental groups have criticized the project, saying the levees have design flaws that may not prevent flooding during major storms and could cause “catastrophic damage” to surrounding areas. Verite News reached out to Venture Global LNG, but the company did not respond to requests for comment.

Philippe called the LNG terminal a “monstrosity”. She is concerned about the negative environmental effects the plant could have on future generations.

Other tribal members, like Phillips, said oil companies and the state are bypassing the community and not listening to their concerns. He said fighting the oil company was “fighting a losing battle.” Still, he has hope for the community’s survival.

“We’re learning to adapt,” Phillips said. “We will survive. That’s a thing about a commercial fisherman and someone from Grand Bayou. We will adapt. We will survive here. This is our land.”

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