CAMERON, La. (AP) - Officials say "pillows," each roughly the size of a small car, are their latest effort to slow erosion to Louisiana's coast.

News outlets reported this week that the rock-filled sacks are being placed by a crane along a 3-mile stretch of shoreline in Southwestern Louisiana. The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is working on the $34 million project protecting the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge in Cameron Parish.

Authority project manager Bevin Barringer tells WVUE-TV that an aggregate material in the rocks makes them lighter. Barringer says the weight is important to reduce how much the breakwater sinks into the area's soils.

Refuge spokesman Gabe Giffin says it'll help stop erosion to the roughly 71,000 acres of mostly marshlands that had encompassed 86,000 acres nearly a century ago.