Next to the airport in Galliano is the Louisiana Plant Materials Center, run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Its mission is so important the director couldn't believe it when he found it was one of the best kept secrets in the area.

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Plant Center grows plants to halt coastal erosion.

“I had assumed that everybody in the bayou would know about it, and I found that nobody knew about it," Dr. Richard Neill, Louisiana Plant Materials Center Manager, said.

From rebuilding marshland to saving beaches, the Plant Materials Center plays a crucial role in coastal restoration projects, by finding the plants that are suitable for newly restored areas.

Project managers know that eventually Mother Nature would do the job, but they don't want the erosion that could occur in the meantime, so the Plant Materials Center finds for the right foliage to speed up the process.

"We search the marsh, we see what Mother Nature put there, so we try to accelerate it in the greenhouses," Garret Thomassie, asst. manager, said.

“It's got to have good soil stabilization, good growth," Neill said.

As the Barataria-Terrebonne national Estuary Program and Port Fourchon worked jointly to re-create 800-acres of marsh, they turned to the Plant Materials Center for the grasses, shrubs and trees needed to prevent erosion.

Now some of the trees are 12-feet tall.

"These guys are experts, they have the expertise that we need, and we turn to them to get it," said Kerry St. Pe from Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary.

The plants developed here are used by nurseries, which grow the large amounts needed for major projects. They also work with school groups interested in coastal restoration.

"We've provided plants for re-vegetation at City Park. We've provided trees for re-vegetation in Belle Chasse at the Naval Air Station, we've worked with the Chitimacha Indians in their switch cane," Neill said.

"So if you can break a wave action with this grass that's growing,” Garret said, “also it provides protection to small animals, fish, any type of marine life, but it also captures sediment.”

The Plant Materials Center is a 90-acre project, with greenhouses, and fields simulating marshland where promising strains can be tested in a five to ten year process, but it is still a mystery to those not familiar with coastal restoration, even Garret Thomassie's friends are not sure what he does for a living.

"They have to ask me twice what I do,” Garret said. “Basically, I just give them my card and tell them they have to come to the center and take a tour."

Plant Materials Center leaders say what they grow here has helped save thousands of acres in Louisiana.

Those interested in touring the Plant Materials Center can call (985) 475-5280.