Building more climate resilient future for Louisiana’s coast

Louisiana’s Barataria Basin has experienced some of the highest rates of land loss on the planet: Between 1932 to 2016, the region lost nearly 295,000 acres of land, displacing communities, threatening critical infrastructure and jobs, and decimating formerly diverse and abundant wildlife habitat.

Louisiana’s bounty – its fisheries, wildlife, and abundant natural resources – are at risk of complete collapse without large-scale restoration projects like the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.

The scheme is a crucial first step in turning the tide on the state’s land loss crisis and protecting vulnerable communities from hurricanes and sea level rise, while also ensuring the long-term health of the ecosystem and wildlife in the face of a changing climate and coast.

The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is the single largest ecosystem restoration program in the history of the U.S.

This project will build more wetlands than any other individual restoration project in the world.

A couple of months ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion. 

Coming in at over 5000 pages, consisting of 10 chapters and 20 appendices, the statement is chock full of information about this proposed project and what it can do to restore the coast. 

A group of more than 55 natural and physical scientists, engineers and social scientists with a combined 1,300 years of research and technical experience related to Louisiana’s coast have co-authored and inked a letter voicing support based on their scientific knowledge and expertise for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.

The group’s collective interdisciplinary work has informed the state’s efforts on the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan and other coastal restoration and protection efforts.

“We know all too well from our research and life experiences what is at stake for the ecosystems and people of coastal Louisiana,” the experts write. “There is an opportunity in Louisiana to invest in restoration to build a more climate resilient future for Louisiana’s coast.”

Speaking about the development of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, the group details the history of the project and extensive research conducted using the best available science and modeling.

While the experts acknowledge that there will be changes to the basin, they all agree that the future of Louisiana’s deltaic wetlands depends on wise investment in restoration projects that provide long-term benefits to the coast.

The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is an important step towards a more climate-resilient future for Louisiana.

“The Mid-Barataria diversion gives us a chance to keep Barataria Bay from disappearing rapidly. And perhaps surprisingly, most living marine resources are better off when the diversion is built compared to a future without it,” said Dr. Kim de Mutsert, Assistant Professor, School of Ocean Science and Engineering, University of Southern Mississippi and one of the signers.

In the letter, the scientists acknowledge that a future without the diversion will cause significant negative changes and disruptions to Louisiana’s coast and the people and resources it supports saying: “Without the diversion major changes are also expected to occur and the ecosystem will continue to degrade with continued sea level rise and wetland loss.”

The experts call for ongoing monitoring and research to measure the diversion’s success and better understand coastal Louisiana’s changing environment, the diversion’s impact to people and to inform the robust adaptive management program that will inform decisions related to project operations.

Additionally, the group supports the establishment of an independent and multidisciplinary science and technical advisory council – including physical scientists, ecologists, sociologists and other experts – to advise operation managers.

“Restoring some of the natural processes that formed Louisiana’s coast in the first place is essential for the greater good of this unique region, but the immediately affected populations deserve the fullest support to cope with the challenges of life in such a dynamic landscape” said Dr. Torbjörn Törnqvist, Vokes Geology Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Tulane University and signer of the letter.

The release of the DEIS has included a public comment period offering individuals and stakeholders an opportunity to play an active role in the restoration process.

Following the public comment period, which ends this week, USACE will issue a final Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision on the project as part of the regulatory process required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

The Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group also released a Restoration Plan identifying how the project will help restore the ecosystem in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.