John Walther
Thibodaux, La. Emergency Management Director

As co-chairman of the Coastal Conservation Association's habitat initiative for Louisiana, Walther coordinates the construction of artificial oyster reefs, which are critical habitat for redfish, flounder, cobia, and other marine life. These reefs, already under constant threat from erosion, will play a vital role in restoring the coastal ecosystem in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster.

I was actually out fishing for speckled trout at one of our reefs in early April, days before the explosion. Now that reef is closed to fishing.

I love being able to go out and fish one of the reefs I created. It kind of completes the cycle. That's why we originally went into the reef business—to protect fisheries habitat.

Due to coastal erosion, we're losing a football field of our land every 30 minutes. As a result, the salinity of our inland waters has increased and the oysters have died off. The loss of hard-bottom habitat represents a huge loss to our fisheries. One way to mitigate these losses is to restore reef areas and create new ones.

I began the first reef project in 2000 at a site that's known as Bird Island. In the end, the project would involve nearly 8,000 tons of limestone, but fund-raising was the first challenge. I reached out to our volunteers for local donations and then I starting applying for grants. We teamed up with state and federal agencies as well as private-sector partners. I work for the state's Department of Agriculture and Forestry, so my day job gives me a lot of access to the rest of the state government to put all these pieces together.

We've now completed five additional artificial reefs with one more under construction. Currently, we've taken things in a new direction by using recycled concrete. For one project, on Lake Pontchartrain, we made use of a concrete bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

As for the oil response, we would certainly like more funding to go into the reef programs—oyster reefs are key to our coastal ecology. The CCA has also proposed building a saltwater hatchery to supplement the population of speckled trout, redfish, and flounder. We don't know what the long-term effects of this will be, but one thing's for certain: Recovery is our only option. I want to make sure that we continue to have enough locations where people can continue to enjoy the sport that's such a big part of our way of life down here.

—As told to Tom Tiberio