What can toughen Louisiana coast against worsening storms? 4 years and 30,000 trees

MERAUX, La. (AP) — Across the calm waters behind a pumping station near Lake Borgne, hundreds of saplings stand out in the mist, wrapped in white plastic cylinders.

To get there and to other sites like it, organizers have ferried dozens of volunteers week after week in airboats. They have a trailer equipped with supplies. Rubber boots in all different sizes. Bins full of snacks for the end of a hard day's work.

One day, they hope to see 30,000 fully grown trees like bald cypress and water tupelo at this and other sites that restore the natural barrier of wetlands into the protective forest it once was. The goal is for the roots of these native trees to hold the earth around New Orleans in place as it slips further below sea level, create habitat for wildlife and help shield the city from storms.

Much of that natural barrier was lost after Hurricane Katrina, which killed over 1,000 people and caused over $100 billion in damage in 2005. But many have been working since then to restore the land, and near the end of a long effort run by local environmental groups, organizers are reflecting on the roots they've helped put down — a more solid ecosystem, so different from the degraded marsh they started with.

“We’re one part of a larger movement to resist this sort of ‘doomerism’ mindset, and to show that recovery is possible,” said Christina Lehew, executive director of Common Ground Relief, one of the organizations working on the tree planting. “When we use our imaginations to envision the past and the vast amount of wetlands landscapes that we have lost, we know that likely we’ll never return to that pristine image of the past. But we can gain something back.”

In other locations around New Orleans, cypress trees planted years ago tower over dense thickets rich with other native plants. They tell the story of what could have been, and what restorers are trying to bring back.

Before the logging industry, before the oil and gas industry, before anyone built levees to contain the Mississippi River, the Delta naturally ebbed and flowed and flooded as the river deposited sediment on the Gulf Coast. The plants that thrived in that ecosystem formed protective estuaries.

But then the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 burst through levees in dozens of places. Hundreds of people died and the water caused catastrophic damage across several states. After that, the government initiated a new era of levee building. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had also constructed a shipping channel called the Mississippi River—Gulf Outlet Canal (MRGO), which ultimately became a path for Katrina’s storm surge into the city of New Orleans.

Those engineering decisions worsened Katrina's destruction. They allowed saltwater into freshwater ecosystems around the city, poisoning many of the trees. And so the city was exposed to future hurricanes, and lost the living guardians whose roots held the land in place.

In 2009, the MRGO was shut down to cut off further saltwater intrusion, and environmental groups started reforesting. Eventually, about five years ago, several organizations came together as a collective to apply for federal and state funding for a bigger project. Spreading two large grants across different volunteer bases, planting in different areas and using different techniques, they're getting closer to that 30,000-tree goal. One of the largest groups, the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, has planted about 10,000 of its 15,000-tree quota, said Andrew Ferris, senior coordinator for their native plants program. They'll finish by next year, he said.

“In our wildest dreams we never thought we’d be able to plant some of the areas that we are now planting,” said Blaise Pezold, who started planting trees around 2009 and is now coastal and environmental program director for the Meraux Foundation, one of the partner organizations. “It was thought to be too low, too salty, Katrina messed it up too much, and we would have to focus on areas that were easier to get into."

The closing of the MRGO and the drop in salinity levels changed all that. “The Central Wetlands Reforestation Collective has kind of allowed us to be very adventurous in the sites we choose,” Pezold added.

For many of the organizers in Louisiana who have been helping with restoration and recovery efforts, the project has been a way to cope with living in the wake of a natural disaster.

Katrina hit the day after Ashe Burke's 8th birthday. “It still affects everybody that went through it, and ... it changed us all. I mean, we had our lives ripped out from underneath us in a day," said Burke, the wetlands restoration specialist for Common Ground Relief, where Lehew also works. “It still does hurt in some ways, you know? But we gotta keep going on and the sun rises in the morning.”

That's also something important to teach the next generation, said Rollin Black, who works with the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, one of the tree-planting partner organizations. He also has family in New Orleans, and he said restoring the environment has been a way to act on the problems he saw. Seeing kids participate helps.

“That brings a little bit of joy to my heart that they’re actually inspired by what we’re doing. So maybe they could come back or maybe they have some reason to live in New Orleans,” he said.

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel.

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White plastic sleeves protect newly-planted bald cypress trees in a wetland area Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in Chalmette, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Blaise Pezold, the coastal and environmental manager for The Meraux Foundation, stands near a bald cypress tree planted as part of restoration efforts Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in Chalmette, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

A newly-planted bald cypress tree sits in a wetland as part of restoration efforts Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Meraux, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Andrew Ferris, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, enters a greenhouse Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, at his organizations' restoration headquarters in Violet, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

White plastic sleeves protect newly-planted trees in a wetland Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Meraux, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

Andrew Ferris, executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, paddles out to a wetland restoration site Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Meraux, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

An egret takes off in a wetland with newly-planted trees Friday, Jan. 23, 2026, in Meraux, La. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel)

PHOENIX (AP) — Candace Parker, Elena Delle Donne, Chamique Holdsclaw and the 1996 U.S. Olympic women's basketball team will be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame later this year.

Parker, Holdsclaw and members of the 1996 Olympic team were all in attendance as well as Amar’e Stoudemire and Mike D’Antoni.

They will be joined by longtime NBA official Joey Crawford, NBA coach Doc Rivers and Gonzaga coach Mark Few.

The group was announced at halftime of the women's Final Four with many members in attendance.

Parker won three titles in the WNBA with three teams: Los Angeles, Chicago and Las Vegas. She's the only player in league history to win both the MVP and Rookie of the Year in the same season.

She also won two titles while playing in college for Tennessee under Hall of Fame coach Pat Summitt, two Olympic gold medals and two WNBA MVP awards.

Delle Donne won two league MVP awards in 2015 and 2019, the second of which came when she led the Washington Mystics to their lone WNBA championship. Delle Donne became the first player in league history to shoot over 50% from the field, 40% from behind the 3-point line and 90% from the free throw line.

Holdsclaw won three straight titles at Tennessee from 1996-98, the first team to accomplish that. The 1998 championship was Tennessee’s first undefeated season at 39–0 and the Vols also set an NCAA record for the most wins in a season. Holdsclaw went on to an 11-year WNBA career.

Stoudemire, who was the only NBA player in this year's class, was the NBA Rookie of the Year in 2003 and six-time All-Star. He spent the first eight years of his career with the Phoenix Suns, where he teamed with D'Antoni.

Rivers got nearly 1,200 victories on his resume which puts him eighth on the all-time wins list. He led the Boston Celtics to the NBA championship in 2008 and was also in charge of the Los Angeles Clippers during their Lob City era.

Few has won over 770 games at Gonzaga in his career at the school. He set the NCAA Division I men's coaching record by winning 81 games in his first three years at the school.

Crawford officiated 2,561 regular-season NBA games and 50 Finals games over his 39-year career. He retired in 2016.

The enshrinement ceremony will take place in August at the Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

FILE - Tennessee's Candace Parker (3) passes around North Carolina's La'Tangela Atkinson in the first half of the NCAA college basketball tournament regional final, Tuesday, March 28, 2006, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)