Lost bayou recreated in one of largest floodplain projects

"Until recently, Mollicy Bayou was no more than a memory of a waterway on old aerial photos, winding its way through a portion of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge in Morehouse Parish.

For decades, farming operations on this 17,000-acre parcel had filled in the waterway, which at one time helped drain the former backwater flooding area for the Ouachita River.


The Nature Conservancy recently finished a project that re-created this waterway along its historical route. Completed in October, the 2.5-mile reconstructed bayou once again connects the interior of the property to the river and is the latest step in one of the largest floodplain restoration projects in the country, encompassing 25 square miles of floodplain.


“I don’t know if it will ever be the same, but the goal is to help it function as a floodplain as normally as possible,” said Joe Saenz, project manager for the North Louisiana National Wildlife Refuge complex."


http://theadvocate.com/home/7576148-...created-in-one