Louisiana TIG Final Barataria Basin Restoration Plan

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group (Louisiana TIG) have approved and released a restoration plan intended to restore wetlands, coastal, and nearshore habitats in the Barataria Basin.

The final restoration plan is the Strategic Restoration Plan and Environmental Assessment #3: Restoration of Wetlands, Coastal, and Nearshore Habitats in the Barataria Basin, Louisiana (Barataria Basin SRP).

The Louisiana TIG is making two decisions in this final plan:

1. A preferred alternative that relies on a suite of restoration approaches and techniques in the Barataria Basin, including large-scale sediment diversions to restore deltaic processes, marsh creation, and ridge restoration.
2. To advance several projects forward for further evaluation and planning:  the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion and one increment of the marsh creation within “Large-Scale Marsh Creation: Component E” in the northern Barataria Basin.

The Louisiana TIG also confirmed its 2017 decision to move the Spanish Pass Increment of the Barataria Basin Ridge and Marsh Creation project forward for further evaluation and planning.

Although the Louisiana TIG selected to advance these projects forward in the restoration planning process, the Louisiana TIG is not making a decision to fund these projects for construction at this time. The Trustees are only considering the projects for future Phase II restoration plans and regulatory evaluations.

The Louisiana TIG chose the Barataria Basin as the geographic scope of this strategic restoration plan due to the high rates of erosion in the Barataria Basin and because these wetlands experienced some of the heaviest and most persistent oiling from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The Barataria Basin wetlands support resources for the entire basin ecosystem, and also support the Gulf of Mexico’s resources. The combination of techniques and approaches to build and maintain habitat across large areas of the Barataria Basin will address injuries to the Gulf ecosystems that depend on its productive wetlands.