Tag: Bayou Fire

Recycled Glass, Turned into Sand, Is Restoring Louisiana’s Shrinking Coastline

The founders of Glass Half Full, though, found a particularly urgent need: They are using the glass to restore New Orleans’ shrinking coastline. In the last decades, Louisiana has lost roughly the size of the state of Delaware, from its eroding beaches and marshes, and continues to lose the size of a football field every half hour due to erosion, hurricanes and rising sea levels.

Together with the Pointe au Chien Indian Tribe and Tulane University, with funding from the National Science Foundation, Trautmann and Steitz are working to restore some of the marshes at the Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain as part of their ReCoast initiative with the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL). There is actually a global sand shortage, and efforts to restore coastlines often involve dredging, which impacts ecosystems. Bolstered by a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, scientists conducted tests to make sure the glass-sand is not harming the environment and no chemicals are leaching into the flora. Turns out that the natural sediment found along the Mississippi River Delta and most beaches along the Gulf Coast is mostly silica, just like the recycled glass.

Recycled Glass, Turned into Sand, Is Restoring Louisiana’s Shrinking Coastline

I talked about coastal erosion in Bayou Fire. Nice to see something like this happening.

Check Out This Lovely 4-Star Review of “Bayou Fire”

The book is also a nominee in the Historical Fiction Company’s 2022 Book of the Year Awards.

Quote from review:

Evangeline is a young girl on the verge of womanhood, and is sent to Paris to finish her studies, as well as become a lady who will attract the right sort of man her father wishes for her, an affluent man with strong ties to the plantations of the South and the way of life. While Evangeline is in Paris, however, she learns more about independence and the horrors of slavery from some of the intellectual boys she meets from the Sorbonne – the revolutionaries who will try to stage an uprising against the King. When she returns to Louisiana and enters society, her new ideas match well with the man she has had her sights on since she was eight-years-old – Alcide Devareaux. Alcide is, himself, a staunch believer in the abolitionist movement and works in secret with the Underground Railroad. A natural attraction ensues, and before long they are engaged to be married… that is, until a rival for Alcide’s attention thinks to thwart the relationship. This jealous rival finds a way to sully Evangeline’s reputation and in doing so, a fire breaks out at the rival’s estate, the LaLaurie House (which is actually recorded in history). To find out the outcome, one must read the story as there are no spoilers here!

Read the entire review at this link.

Want your own copy of Bayou Fire? Here’s the blurb for this multi-award-winning dual timeline novel, and a universal purchase link.

Diana Corbett’s childhood was plagued by unceasing dreams of smoke and flames. The nightmares went away, until the noted travel writer’s first night on assignment in Louisiana … when they returned with a vengeance. Could the handsome Cajun, Amos Boudreaux, be the key to unlocking the secret of BAYOU FIRE?

Get it from your favorite retailer today! Available in eBook, paperback, and large print editions.