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Audio: Whiskey Island shows the progress and challenges of beach restoration projects

By this summer, the island will be 1,000 acres larger. But the state will have to periodically rebuild it in the coming years.
by Della Hasselle
This pipe starts 13 miles away, at a former island now underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, and it ends at this remote beach on Whiskey Island in Terrebone Parish. By this summer, sediment flowing from this pipe will add about 1,000 acres to the island.

Coastal scientists are almost finished rebuilding Whiskey Island, a barrier island in Terrebone Parish that has been washing away for years.

Beach restoration projects like this are a big part of Louisiana’s plan to rebuild and protect the coast. But they aren’t permanent, and some critics question their value.

This story was produced in collaboration with WWNO-FM.

Della Hasselle

Della Hasselle, a freelance journalist and producer, reports environmental and criminal justice stories for The Lens. A graduate of Benjamin Franklin High School and the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Hasselle lived in New York for 10 years. While up north, she produced and anchored news segments, wrote feature stories and reported breaking news for DNAinfo.com, a hyperlocal news site. Before that, she worked at the New York Daily News. She obtained her master

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