For two days we worked for the non-profit Bayou Rebirth http://www.bayourebirth.org/ . The Bayou Rebirth mission is to restore the bayou and to educate the citizens of Louisiana about the importance of the bayou. Bayous are disappearing at an alarming rate of an acre per day.
The group propagates plants native to the bayou that will replace plants that have been destroyed. Many of you made this work possible through your purchaes of virtual plants bushes and trees. This week we planted the real thing!
Our assignment in the Hollygrove neighborhood was to create a model flood mitigation pond. With alot of effort, we dug a 10'x30'x3' hole that we learned was the former foundation of a house. We learned it the hard way by unearthing countless bricks and cement blocks - some which were blue!
We then filled the pond with various native grasses and decorated the outline of the pond with bricks. The plants will grow in the pool and will fill with rainwater run off. The roots of the grasses will act as sponges to absorb the water and keep it from flooding the surronding area.
The goal of this project is to demonstrate that flood water mitigation can be obtained through natural means rather than pumps and pipes. Our leader, Andrew, shared with us that 60% of New Orlean's carbon emmissions currently comes from the water pump system.
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