Mark Saturday, Sept. 19, on your calendar and come out and join forces with other dedicated volunteers to clean the beaches of Elmer’s Island. Together with community stakeholders, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), along with a multitude of project partners are hosting an Elmer’s Island Trash Bash.
Elmer’s Island is the state’s newest wildlife refuge, located on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico across Caminada Pass from Grand Isle in Jefferson Parish. The beach clean-up will begin at 8 a.m.
The goal of the event is a litter-free beach that the public can enjoy. All citizens, social organizations and civic groups are invited to participate. Event organizers include LDWF, Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program (BTNEP), East Ascension Sportsman’s League, Grand Isle Port Commission, LSU AgCenter, Louisiana Wildlife Federation and Louisiana Sea Grant.
To register, visit BTNEP’s volunteer Web site, http://volunteer.btnep.org, complete the form provided, and either mail or fax it to BTNEP Public Involvement Coordinator, Mel Landry, using the contact information listed on the form. Volunteers are asked to report to the staging area, where they will be assigned to a designated sector and receive trash collection procedures. All supplies including bug spray, trash bags, gloves and water will be provided to volunteers for the event.
The public can enter Elmer’s Island Wildlife Refuge via an access road connecting La Hwy. 1 to the refuge beach area. To avoid excess traffic on the Elmer’s Island access road and to minimize the numbers of vehicles on the beach, carpooling to the event is encouraged.
This event is made possible through generous contributions and support by LDWF sponsors. Volunteers will enjoy both a complimentary lunch and breakfast, sponsored by the Grand Isle Community Development Team and Shaw Coastal.
The department is proud of the volunteers and businesses that support LDWF's mission of educating and engaging individuals to take responsibility for improving their community environment through litter prevention, waste reduction, education and beautification.
The event is registered with the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Cleanup, which has been held on the third Saturday of September for the past 23 years. At last year’s cleanup, nearly 400,000 volunteers collected more than 6.8 million pounds of trash in 100 countries and 42 U.S. states.
In addition to the scheduled clean up effort, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Crescent Soil Water Conservation District recently planted approximately 5,000 pots of marsh hay cordgrass and bitter panicum along the shorelines of the island. This new vegetation will assist in stabilizing and capturing sand to build dunes. The project will also create wildlife habitat, increase species diversity and provide a seed source for natural regeneration.
Funding for vegetative protective fencing has been provided by Daybrook Fisheries, Inc. and Omega Protein, Inc. The fencing is designed to prevent disturbance to the ground and the new vegetation and will also encourage sand deposition to aid in the creation of dunes. Installation of the fencing will take place within weeks.
For volunteer and event registration information, please contact Mel Landry at BTNEP at 985-447-0868 or at Mel@BTNEP.org. For other Elmer’s Island Trash Bash information, contact Mandy Tumlin with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries at 225-765-2377 or mtumlin@wlf.la.gov.
