Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with the aid of the Louisiana National Guard deposited over 9,900 Christmas trees into the Bayou Savage National Wildlife Refuge. Helicopters, carrying bundles of trees, hovered just above the ground before dropping the trees into the marsh.
The joint effort has been a spring tradition for over twenty years. In early January, crews collect natural and undecorated trees—no tinsel, ornaments, or lights are allowed--from residents in the Greater New Orleans area. Local waste companies and environmental groups then clean, sort, and bundle the trees together. In March every year, pilots from the Louisiana National Guard—who conduct the drops as part of training exercises—drop the bundles from their helicopters into Bayou Savage. Then workers in the Bayou anchor the bundles into place.
Bayou Savage is a 23,000 acre wildlife refuge full of marshes located within the New Orleans City limits. It is the largest urban wildlife refuge in the United States. Situated in New Orleans East, the refuge sits inside the levee system and helps hold back storm surges and regulate water levels in New Orleans itself. It houses a wide range of wildlife including the endangered brown pelican, white pelicans, raptors, alligators, bass, catfish, and the other wildlife you’d expect in a protected marshland. In total, there are some 340 different bird species that call Bayou Savage home. The refuge also features a mix of freshwater and brackish marshes, hardwood forests, lagoons, canals, and bayous.
The trees dropped into Bayou Savage provide a stable platform for the growth of new plants. These new plants can then catch silt, cleaning the water and building up the marshes even further. When hurricane season comes, these barriers slow down erosion and most importantly help slow down the storm surge. Refuge manager Shelley Stias explained that “When a storm comes, a healthy marsh will absorb all of that water and slow the wave action down. Not saying that New Orleans will not flood, but it will not flood as bad.”
Re-growing marshland takes years, but the decades long effort has added hundreds of acres of marshland to Bayou Savage. As the marshland builds up, there are more plants available for birds and other wildlife to eat, causing a growth in the wildlife population.
Captain Richard Suarez of Mandeville echoed the importance of the project. He told 4WWL that “Being from Louisiana, growing up, we know that coastal erosion is a huge problem here. Something I can do personally to have an effect on reversing that or stemming it, is something that has a lot of meaning to me.”
When it comes to protecting and growing marshland, who knew that Christmas trees could be such a powerful and effective weapon?
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