WE NEED MORE RESTORATION PARKS

 Piney Woods Journal Sunmission 2019

West Monroe and its many partners deserve broader public acclaim for constructing and operating its 70-acre Restoration Park.  This special park seems a potential model for what some other Louisiana and Southern communities might consider for repairing their own particular brownfields or degraded watershed areas.

Bonnie Bolden of the Monroe News Star did a recent (1/7/19) Associated Press profile of Restoration Park.  She describes well some of the history of the park, with the people and organizations contributing to this vision, and she reports on the recent opening of the office for Ouachita Green there.  Ouachita Green is a collaboration of Keep Ouachita Parish Beautiful, Keep Monroe Beautiful and Keep West Monroe Beautiful, and it focuses on environmental education and green volunteerism. 

Restoration Park in West Monroe has benefited from volunteerism and public/private collaborations over the last twenty-five or more years, similar in some ways to the development of the Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Preserve, about 10 miles away in north Monroe.  I won’t describe details of the early history and recent developments at Restoration Park.  Bolden’s recent AP article, easily accessed over the internet, and a University of Louisiana Monroe web site (https://www.ulm.edu/~stringer/restorationpark/history) 

provide much of this interesting information. Instead, I’ll share some photos and impressions from my visit to this different type of park.

Most state parks offer multiple attractions and opportunities for personal and family recreation and human-nature interactions, and Restoration Park has some of these typical features. There are nice walking trails along the perimeter and through the park with signs identifying various flora.  Wooden foot bridges allow visitors access over pond areas where beavers and other fauna can be observed.  Two hotels are situated adjacent to the park with nearby visitors and large convention centers.

Restoration Park is probably less an example of ecological “restoration” or plans for a full return to the watershed’s original conditions.  It appears to be more of an example of ecological “rehabilitation” to recover many of the ecological characteristics of this watershed area.  Gravel and sand pits that were first dug over a century ago and then abandoned decades ago had been filled since then with waste and dump materials.  Although efforts to clear and remove debris and dump items have occurred, heavy rains there will continue to unearth and reveal remnants of waste disposal.  A few yards from one trail there, I spotted what seemed likely was an automobile seat with metal springs dangling out wildly from it.  

Along the banks of a few small streams could be seen plastic bags half buried in the sand or twisted in the roots and branches of bushes.  Bolden in her AP article explains that this contradiction is part of the unique experience of visiting Restoration Park.  The park displays how nature can be harshly affected by humans, and how these damaged and degraded lands places can be reclaimed, if only over time and with continuing expense.

There are at least a few other parks in the USA and abroad that incorporate multi-purpose watershed restoration or rehabilitation goals that include environmental education and recreational opportunities.  Robert Frank’s 2012 book, Environmental Restoration and Design for Recreation and Ecotourism, explores five case studies of successful regenerative landscape design projects.  The repair of a degraded watershed in the Las Vegas area and creation of the Clark County Wetlands Park there offers perhaps closer parallels to Restoration Park in West Monroe.

Wetlands restoration or rehabilitation is critical to a state like Louisiana, especially in its coastal and marshland areas.  There are often many complex causes and consequences for wetland and watershed degradation.  Restoration Park is just one particular type of rehabilitated brownfield or watershed degradation, and an undertaking that demanded less expensive and more manageable approaches than many damaged watersheds.  Town and cities across this region of the country need to consider basic EPA wetlands recovery principles.  These include 1) identifying previous and ongoing causes for degraded watersheds and possible potentials within these communities, 2) having affected stakeholders involved throughout this discovery of problems and potentials and in the development of clear, achievable and measurable goals, 3) exploring efforts undertaken elsewhere that may be similar to and useful for confronting challenges faced there, 4) focusing on more feasible and sustainable approaches, 5) trying to develop a multi-disciplinary and skilled team of volunteers and partners, 6) better understanding native flora and fauna and approaches to encourage their re-emergence, and 7) continuing to monitor changes and adapting plans and actions where necessary.  

The most important factor for successful wetlands and watershed rehabilitation projects seems to be a founding group of very committed local citizens who refuse to accept the current state of damaged or abused lands.  Without this recognition of a problem and driving force for change, other steps toward actual land rehabilitation can’t be taken.  

One of many tree markers along trail                Office of Ouachita Green at Restoration Park