The Louisiana Governor’s Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection, Restoration and Conservation recommended on Thursday February 5, 2009 building several major diversions of water and sediment from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers according to Mark Schleifstein’s article in the Friday February 6, 2009 New Orleans Times Picayune entitled, Major river projects urged. Further, the Commission recommended that state and federal agencies responsible for the work draft a plan by the end of 2010 on how this would be accomplished.
If this recommendation were implemented, it would require a serious reconsideration of how the Mississippi River is managed on a scale reaching well beyond the borders of Louisiana. Inevitably removing a large quantity of fresh water and sediment from the main channel of the Mississippi River system will impact navigation. I will be interested to see the reaction of the Army Corps of Engineers to these recommendations. They have historically focused on navigation and then in the 20th century added flood control to their agenda. Those objectives have not materially conflicted or competed in recent times. Adding the diversion of a large volume of fresh water and sediment from the main channel of the Mississippi River will require compromises between navigation and coastal restoration interests.
In this regard, Schleifstein makes several interesting points:
1. The large diversions — which could move 100,000 cubic feet or more of freshwater and sediment into target areas of open water each second — could require abandoning part or all of the traditional bird foot delta of the lower Mississippi River.
2. The diversion may also require redesigning the navigation channels at the rivers’ mouths to allow shipping to reach upriver ports.
3. Further still, the larger amounts of freshwater placed into brackish and saltwater wetlands will disrupt today’s commercial and recreational fishing catches.
Even if we get past these issues which is much easier said than done, we will have to consider where the funding is going to come from. The Louisiana state government and Congressional delegation need to establish a funding mechanism at the federal level for implementing a long term coastal restoration program including the recently recommended diversion projects. Until the funding piece is determined, the recommendations will likely remain just that.
I enjoy reading this blog and appreciate all advocates coastal restoration. I also appreciate your unbiased approach to reporting on coastal restoration updates.
As for this entry, you point out some very important facts which I’ll duplicate here at the sake of being repetitive:
1. The large diversions — which could move 100,000 cubic feet or more of freshwater and sediment into target areas of open water each second — could require abandoning part or all of the traditional bird foot delta of the lower Mississippi River.
2. The diversion may also require redesigning the navigation channels at the rivers’ mouths to allow shipping to reach upriver ports.
3. Further still, the larger amounts of freshwater placed into brackish and saltwater wetlands will disrupt today’s commercial and recreational fishing catches.
These are only a handful of the issues that have yet to be addressed on large diversions. I’d like to elaborate on a few add some of my own here:
4. Not only will large amounts of fresh water disrupt commercial and recreational fishing catches in the areas where fresh water is diverted; they have the potential to alter the fisheries of much of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. Many of our near shore and offshore commercial and recreational important species depend on the estuary during some part of their life cycle; whether it be as a breeding grounds, a nursery, or a source of food. In addition, many species that are not included in this group depend on other estuarine dependent species as a source of food. We’re not talking about “upsetting a few oystermen” as many people reference historically with respect to the Caernarvon and Davis Pond diversions. We’re talking about the potential to significantly impact the entire commercial and recreational fishing economy of coastal Louisiana.
5. We’re not talking just about fishing. The culture of coastal Louisiana is intimately tied to the land. As you leave the metropolises of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and elsewhere, you begin to see firsthand the unique culture of Louisiana that is know the world over as “Cajun”. But even “Cajun” puts too find a point on it. Our ancestors were German, Italian, Islenos, Acadian, Creole, and African to name a few. In Louisiana, the culture of these groups has been retained through generations and is now considered a national treasure. As recently as 25 years ago, speaking French was frowned upon, and children were forbidden to speak it in schools at the risk of being held back. Parents refused to pass this part of their heritage on to their children with the intention of giving them better opportunities in life. Many areas where Cajun French was once the only language that was used to communicate are now devoid of this part of the culture. Today we look at this as a cultural tragedy. Our university system in many cases is the last bastion of this cultural cornerstone. By changing the landscape with large scale diversions and the introduction of massive quantities of fresh water that will alter the way our people live off the land, we risk impacted another major component of our lifestyle and completely annihilating this cultural treasure.
6. What about flooding? There have been issues with the operation of our current medium sized division at Davis Pond which only pumps just over 10,000 cubic feet per second at maximum. Communities were threatened with flooding and the diversion had to be slowed while levees were reinforced. When we divert over ten times (or more as suggested by some) that amount from the Mississippi River, how do we protect communities like Lafitte and others who eke out an existence in unprotected areas in the middle of our wetland basins?
7. How was Louisiana really built? Coastal Louisiana was built over the course of 65,00 years by changing courses of the Mississippi River. Our state was not built from the river’s current channel alone. The river swept across our state from Bayou Teche, through the Atchafalaya and Bayou Lafourche, and east through Lake Pontchartrain and St. Bernard before finding its current home. Diversions are advocated as the “natural way”. The “natural way” would be the abandonment of all of low lying southern Louisiana, south of where the Atchafalaya meets the Mississippi River near Morganza. The river could then run free to “naturally” rebuild our coast. We’re not just talking about sacrificing communities and lifestyles “south of New Orleans” in Plaquemines Parish. We’re talking about abandoning Orleans, Jefferson, Terrebonne, Ascension, Iberville, and St. Mary Parishes to name a few. Plans to go back to the “natural way” make a lot less sense when you realize what “natural” means. A wetlands utopia doesn’t sound as nice when it’s rolling down Airline Hwy. Diversions alone do not mimic the sum of the processes that created coastal Louisiana, and they are no more “natural” than other restoration strategies that on the surface may seem more “engineered”.
8. What do we get for the sacrifice? Even if these risks and sacrifices were acceptable to the people of coastal Louisiana, what do we get from diverting large quantities of fresh water into our wetlands? As was already stated, it took the Mississippi River 6,500 years to build coastal Louisiana. In the 100 years we have destroyed or heavily impacted nearly the entire system. Because of navigation and flood control measures throughout the Mississippi River Valley (locks, dams, levees) it is estimated that the Mississippi River may carry as little as 20% – 50% of the sediment it carried when it built our home. Do we have over 6,500 years to wait for the Mississippi River to heal us? We’re experiencing catastrophic impacts from coastal wetlands loss every year. Strong storm fronts regularly cover our roads and flood our lawns. This does not include hurricane and tropical storm events. In 2008 hurricane Ike passed far off our coast, but flooded many communities in coastal Louisiana. We do not have the time to wait for large river diversions to restore the protective wetland barrier.
9. We have alternatives. We need sediment, not excessive fresh water. Excessive amounts of fresh water have negative impacts on our ecology, our economy, and our culture. We have the technology to harvest sediment from the beds of our major rivers and from offshore and to pump that sediment to sites where we can instantly rebuild the wetlands complex. This is technology we already use on a small scale. Every time a resort beach is destroyed, we pump in sand to rebuild the beach. When we rebuild barrier islands, this is the technology that is used. Portions of many of our roads (I-10 and LA 3126 to name a couple) were built by harvesting sediment from the Mississippi River. Behind Port Fourchon, this technology was used to restore a marsh and maritime forest ridge complex as well as on many smaller marsh creation projects across the coast. We regularly dredge the Mississippi River and our ports for shipping access, and this material is transported to the edge of the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico and dumped, rather than being used to restore the wetlands we so desperately need. A feasibility study of a major diversion into the Barataria and Terrebonne Basins showed that pipeline sediment delivery was more feasible, more economical, and built more land in a shorter period of time than the proposed diversion project.
Why aren’t we doing this? For decades, we’ve been told that diversions are the answer. Today, as a society we’ve been convinced of the need for diversions based on the advice of modelers and scientist who have worked to advance the idea of diversions while not considering the political likelihood or the adverse impacts of these projects. The restoration community has begun to embrace the use of pipeline sediment delivery, but we have a long way to go before we undo the misinformation of yesterday and begin to show all the residents of coastal Louisiana of the impacts of large diversions and the benefits of pipeline sediment delivery.
Finally, pipeline sediment delivery alone is not the answer. Appropriately sized and appropriately placed freshwater diversions and siphons (2,000 – 15,000cfs or maybe more in the appropriate places) will need to be utilized to sustain the land we build, and hold saltwater lines in appropriate places. An important thing to realize is that the more land we rebuild using other means, better our landmass can hold fresh water and nutrients, and the less fresh water we need to input to sustain what we build. In the end, we’ve rebuilt our coast with minimal impacts, and have reconstructed a sustainable system in a way that is acceptable to our people and our way of life.
We also need to realize that resources are limited. We don’t have the funding to build projects that may or may not work, or to build structures that will never be fully utilized because of the adverse impacts. We need to quickly embrace socially acceptable strategies that will result in meaningful land building in a reasonable amount of time. Using pipeline sediment delivery in concert with appropriate sized diversions will provide us with that.
Thank you. I look forward to visiting your blog for many future updates.
Mel Landry
We need Coastal Restoration. Diversions both large and small, pipelines, beneficial use of sediment can all contribute to a sustainable coast. EVERYTHING!
But we can’t throw our hands in the air saying restoration or specific tools will change fisheries, or lifestyles or cause seasonal disruptions because in the end if we don’t throw every tool we have at the problem all will be lost. Disrupting the status quo might necessary to make sure that the delta doesn’t end up underwater. There will be winners and losers in restoration, we can deal with those consequences but if we do nothing there will only be losers.