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LACOMBE, La.-- On land, in water and within the muck: plugs of marsh grass planted on the Northshore that could end up helping restore marshes hit by the oil spill on the Southshore.

"The fact that I'm not cleaning up oil right now really doesn't matter," said Bonnie Blomberg, a volunteer from Oregon. "I feel good about doing this and it also helps about getting the word out."

On Wednesday morning dozens of volunteers fanned out to plant marsh grasses at the Big Branch National Wildlife Refuge in Lacombe. It is part of an ongoing marsh restoration project in that area.

"This is a classic example of making new land," said refuge manager Danny Breaux, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Hurricane Katrina wiped out 2,500 acres of marsh at the refuge, creating open water where there had once been land. An aggressive restoration effort that began in 2008 undid some of that damage and recreated 600 acres of marsh.

"It benefited more than what the project itself was intended," Breaux said.

Now, the benefit could reach beyond the borders of the refuge -- all the way down to coastal marshes affected by the spill. Even though the replanted area was not directly impacted by the oil spill, it could help places that were by creating a living lab and a potential source of vegetation. The two-week effort to replant marsh at Big Branch will end up including 700 volunteers and 70,000 plugs of marsh grass.

"People get interested, they want to help with the oil spill and this is kind of an off-shoot of that," said Joy Yoshina, a volunteer who came in from Baton Rouge.

Once the marsh grasses take root, seedlings are expected to be harvested here and planted in coastal areas with similar tidal basins. The project has been successful so far and it has attracted the attention of a number of federal officials, including Dr. Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She spent part of Wednesday planting marsh grasses with the volunteers. http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/Northshore-restoration-projec
t-could-help-southshore-oil-spill-affected-marsh-104025374.html was my roommate and I did a weekend working with Danny on the refuge itself. In case you doubt me:


Me with my two roommates (I forget the other girl's name, she was only there for three days)


Bonnie and I on the boat heading out


Gleeful me, my first time out on one of the marsh boats


Loading the marsh boats with grasses


The bags of marsh grasses we planted (each of us did about a bag a day)


My team at work


Danny (who drove us out every morning to the boats and with whom I did one Saturday's work on the reserve


One day's home base from out in the water


"Home base" from where we planted--changed every day as we planted in different areas


My feet (complete with ankle brace) after a couple of hours in the marsh muck


Me on our one day off (Sunday) when Bonnie and I went into New Orleans
The t-shirt is one someone designed about FF--I wore Serenity T-shirts every day, and met several other browncoats, the best of which was Jennifer, our team leader who was an absolute gas and I adored:

(Notice I have a Serenity t-shirt on)


A chunk of oil Bonnie and I found that afternoon on the beach

I was there for my birthday--which turned out to be the first day I couldn't work because of my ankle. It really bummed me out, but Bonnie (and Choey back here at home) insisted I do SOMETHING, so I took a swamp tour. It was gorgeous, the water was totally covered in places (and yes, that's WATER under all that green!):


We saw lots of wildlife, mostly crocks of course:



And this little guy, who jumped right out of the water onto me!



On our way out to base, and an idea of what we planted looks like by now (they say it fills in COMPLETELY in a couple of years)

I've even got video:

On the way out in the air boat:

This one's crummy...wind was always blowing (which kept us cool, thank gawd!) so you can't hear me. We planted on land as well as in the water; I preferred being on my butt in the water, but this was the one day I worked on land.

So when these guys piss you off, remember of what they are capable!

(Sorry guys to duplicate all this stuff, but I want any who have come here since then to know what big hearts you have! So pat yourselves on the back--I don't figure anyone got this far unless they cared)