Photo: City of New Orleans
At Bayou Sauvage Urban National Wildlife Refuge on the east side of New Orleans, helicopters bring trees after Christmas. For about 30 years, the refuge has teamed with the City of New Orleans to repurpose Christmas trees into new marsh to foster coastal restoration. To date, more than 150,000 Christmas trees have created about 115 acres of wetland habitat that’s further bolstered by wiregrass and bulrush planted by the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. During Hurricane Katrina, adjacent neighborhoods didn’t flood. New Orleanians typically leave Christmas trees up until the Epiphany on January 6, the first day of Mardi Gras. Then the city picks up the trees and brings them to a staging site, where they are bundled by a contractor before National Guard helicopters fly them to the refuge.
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