Robert Dubois

Salty waters flow free and fast into Lake Boudreaux through Robinson Canal and Boudreaux Canal, which connect the lake to a network of waterways leading to the Gulf of Mexico, said Robert Dubois, a senior field biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
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The project also creates a protected lagoon behind the rebuilt shoreline that will be a refuge for juvenile fish and shrimp and will attract ducks in winter, Dubois said.

"Once you stop that lake water, which is higher salinity and very turbid, this area will become a nursery for redfish, shrimp and trout.They'll grow up here and go," Dubois said.

Two channels will run between them to allow boats to pass and to allow water to flow between the lake and the new lagoon, Dubois added.

Officials will either dig gaps into the levee on the protected side of the project or flatten it out completely to allow in the water necessary to make it a flourishing marsh habitat.

A rock levee running 11,600 feet along the lakeside of the project guards the infant land mass from further erosion by the lake.

And to make sure the project holds its ground, the Department of Natural Resources will inspect and maintain the project annually for the next 20 years, Dubois said.

"They'll survey the height, and if we have problems with any erosion or with the rock levee sinking, they'll come place new rocks," Dubois said.

The raw land looks barren now -- unearthed from the bottom of the lake chock with oyster and clam shells, spewed from a dredge pipeline into a pile and packed and shaped by a bulldozer.

But Dubois said brackish marsh plants will grow quickly atop the soil.
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"It's eroding already," Dubois said, pointing to a spot where the bank has been eaten inward.He said he doesn't understand why someone would refuse to join in on a project aimed at saving her property.

Dubois didn't want to reveal the property owner's name but said that she didn't want to allow government contractors access to her land to maintain the project for the next 20 years.

"But in 20 years," he said, "it's a sure thing that they won't have any property left."

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative Robert Dubois nominated a project to construct a 16,700-foot rock dyke along the southern shoreline of Lake Boudreaux south of Houma.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, especially the latter, have magnified the need for the project, as the storms further eroded the lake's shore, visibly reducing marsh, said Robert Dubois with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal partner on the project.