Some say Louisiana's southern wetlands have already been doomed by the taming of the Mississippi, oil industry canals—and now rising seas. Can a state restoration plan turn the tide?
But then as now, as Louisiana enters another hurricane season, hoping it won’t bring the third straight year of monstrous storms, Haase was focused on the infrastructure he himself oversees—part of a $50 billion plan to save much of the state’s coastline from disappearing off the map., as it’s called, is a moonshot bet, the state’s last best chance to slow the self-destruction caused by three centuries of human intervention in the environment.
In the 16 years since the CPRA kicked into gear, 60 miles of barrier islands and berms have been constructed, 365 miles of levees improved, and 54,903 acres of wetlands revived. These days, other U.S. states and cities are discussing ambitious coastal restoration plans too. But none has yet been able to move forward as Louisiana has.
This photo of a cemetery in Leeville, 45 miles south of New Orleans, was taken two months before Hurricane Ida. The cemetery floods regularly when a south wind or lesser storm brings high water.Some would call the chance of success slim. In 2020,concluded that seas were rising and land subsiding fast enough in the Mississippi Delta that the remaining 5,800 square miles of Louisiana's coastal wetlands—most of the land south of Interstate 10—were probably doomed.
“Right now, we are letting our biggest asset go right out into the Gulf, and I see the end of Plaquemines Parish coming without utilizing the river and building these diversions,” says Kimble. “I want people to come back to Plaquemines. I don’t want this place to be empty.” Despite an open planning process and numerous public meetings, many people in such affected areas feel the Coastal Master Plan has excluded them. Around 20 miles downriver from Ironton and a mile and half west of the river, Grand Bayou Village sits on low marshy land that’s in the process of disappearing into Barataria Bay. A community of Indigenous fisher people, the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha, live here in homes reachable only by boat.
The impact statement “does identify that some communities south of the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion will experience increased water levels due to operating the project,” says CPRA spokesperson Therese Walker.
“The resistance is not surprising,” says Haase. “What we are talking about is effecting change and that is a scary thing to all of us.” But “whether we do a project or not,” he goes on, “the coast will continue to change.”For more than 80 years now, the main agent of change in this region has been the oil and gas industry. These days much of the most intensive drilling has moved offshore, or to the Haynesville Shale, a rich gas field in the northwestern part of the state.
Lieutenant General Russel Honoré, who served as commanding general of the U.S. First Army and famously helped restore order and dignity to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, now helps lead a grassroots environmental movement he calls the Green Army. He is highly skeptical of CPRA and the Master Plan, largely because he believes the oil and gas industry has too prominent a role in the agency’s decision-making.
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