"A prominent coastal advocacy group warned Tuesday against reducing the scale of Louisiana’s biggest ever coastal restoration project, the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, as negotiations dragged on over the unprecedented plan’s future.
The nearly $3 billion project broke ground in August 2023 after years of planning and scientific evaluation, but legal challenges and a change in approach by Gov. Jeff Landry’s administration have since left it in limbo. Only limited work is now being allowed at the site near Ironton on Plaquemines Parish’s west bank, and state and parish officials have been negotiating a way forward.
The diversion, never before attempted on such a scale, had long been held up by the state’s coastal agency as a vital component of its restoration strategy, particularly because of the way it would work with nature to restore lost wetlands in the heavily impacted Barataria Basin. It is being paid for with fines and settlement money related to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
But Plaquemines Parish has been firmly opposed, largely due to the effects on commercial fishing for shrimp and oysters. The influx of freshwater into the basin will kill off oyster reefs in the area and force commercial fishers to move farther out.
Coastal advocates and scientists backing the plan point out that the diversion would use the same forces that built Louisiana in the first place – sediment from the Mississippi River – to replenish dying wetlands. They also note that saltwater intrusion has only advanced that far inland because of the dramatic land loss that has occurred.
There have been concerns that the negotiations could lead to the scale of the project – along with its expected results -- being reduced at a time when Louisiana’s land loss crisis is worsening. The project is slated to funnel up to 75,000 cubic feet per second of water and sediment into the basin from the river, though that number would be seasonally adjusted depending on conditions.
Simone Maloz, campaign director for the Restore the Mississippi River Delta coalition, spoke of the long, intricate process that led to the diversion plan during an online press conference on coastal restoration projects more broadly on Tuesday. She spoke of the many public meetings and thousands of public comments considered, along with permits and approvals granted by trustees overseeing BP spill proceeds and the Army Corps of Engineers..."
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