Valero commits $100,000 to coastal-restoration efforts in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana
Valero Energy Corp., the world’s largest independent refiner and renewable fuels producer, has committed $100,000 through Ducks Unlimited to the Meraux Foundation/Forty Arpent Canal Terracing Project in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.
“Partnering with Ducks Unlimited to help provide coastal restoration is important to Valero,” said Leslie Sullivan, vice president and general manager of Valero Meraux. “This is an example of our commitment to conservation and our efforts to promote biodiversity and protect the environment in areas where we work and live.”
Project work includes constructing and planting approximately 30,500 linear feet of earthen terraces near Bayou Bienvenue.
Marsh restoration and enhancement projects like this help coastal communities by lessening storm surge and flooding during tropical-weather events and providing other functions and values such as water-quality improvements and economic benefits.
The terraces reduce wind and wave action, improving nursery habitat for fisheries and reducing erosion of adjacent marshes.
“Terraces help restore emergent marsh and protect existing marsh and infrastructure,” said Cassidy Lejeune, Ducks Unlimited’s director of conservation programs for South Louisiana. “This project will convert 200 acres of open water into a mixture of habitat types that are beneficial to fish and wildlife. The terraces will also be a good buffer for erosion for a portion of Chalmette’s flood-protection levee system.”
The earthen terraces will be located adjacent to St. Bernard Parish’s Forty Arpent Wetlands Observatory, which is open to public access.
The terracing project is currently under construction and can be viewed by walking along the gravel road on the north side of the levee.
Additional project partners include Delacroix Corp., the St. Bernard Parish government, the James M. Cox Foundation, the Meraux Foundation, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, the National Wildlife Federation, the North American Wetlands Conservation Council, Taurus Properties, Yamaha Marine and the Louisiana Gulf Coast Initiative sponsors.
Ducks Unlimited Inc. is the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving North America’s continually disappearing waterfowl habitats. Established in 1937, Ducks Unlimited has conserved more than 15 million acres thanks to contributions from more than a million supporters across the continent.
Valero Energy Corp., through its subsidiaries, is a multinational manufacturer and marketer of petroleum-based and low-carbon liquid transportation fuels and petrochemical products, and it sells its products primarily in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland and Latin America. Valero owns 15 petroleum refineries located in the U.S., Canada and the U.K. with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.2 million barrels per day.
Valero is a joint venture member in Diamond Green Diesel Holdings LLC, which owns two renewable diesel plants located in the U.S. Gulf Coast region with a production capacity of approximately 1.2 billion gallons per year, and Valero owns 12 ethanol plants located in the U.S. with a combined production capacity of approximately 1.6 billion gallons per year.
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