LA - Rerouting the Mississippi River could build new land and save a retreating coast
Rerouting the Mississippi River could build new land and save a retreating coast
In a swamp at the edge of Louisiana’s Barataria Bay, plastic-capped GPS antennas sprout like oversize mushrooms from four small wooden platforms. The gear, which helps scientists monitor changes in the surrounding marsh, is easy to miss in this expanse of water and swampland the size of Delaware. But it represents something even bigger: the beginnings of a grand ecosystem engineering experiment that has been 50 years in the making and could ultimately cost some $50 billion.
Rerouting the Mississippi River could build new land—and save a retreating coast
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$2 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion attracts more opposition
The project aims to restore and sustain eroding wetlands in and around Barataria Bay, an area that stretches roughly from southeastern Lafourche Parish to southwestern Plaquemines.
Mark Schleifstein
NEW ORLEANS Louisiana Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and the St. Bernard Parish Council have come out against the proposed $2 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.
The officials called it a threat to commercial and recreational fishing, bottlenose dolphins and the economies and cultures of St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.
Councilwoman Kerri Callais said the estimated 21 square miles of new land created by the diversion over 50 years is not enough to offset the potential loss of revenue from fisheries or the effects on the area s heritage.
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Summary
In Louisiana, state officials and scientists are working to harness the Mississippi River to save part of the coast from disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico. The project, billed as one of the world s largest ecological restoration efforts, is a grand experiment in trying to revive some of the natural processes that built Louisiana s rich coastal wetlands. The plan calls for routing part of the sediment-filled river into nearby Barataria Bay, just south of New Orleans. The hope is this new sand and mud will replenish marshes starved of sediment when the river was walled off by a network of levees decades ago. Scientists who have documented the coast s decline are now working to understand what s likely to happen if the river is unleashed, and to document the effects if the project goes forward.View Full Text
Thu April 15, 2021 - Southeast Edition #8
Lori Tobias â CEG Correspondent
Aerial image, captured in 2014, of the future Upper Barataria Large Scale Marsh Creation project area location where more than 1,100 acres of marsh will be restored.
(NOAA Fisheries/Gulf Coast Air and Weeks Marine Inc. photo)
Nearly 11 years after the
Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is preparing to bid out the marsh restoration project on Barataria Bay, La. According to NOAA, the lead federal agency on the Barataria Bay project, the explosion killed 11 people, injured 17 others and emptied 134 million gal. of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. It caused the deaths of 105,400 sea birds; 7,600 adult and 160,000 juvenile sea turtles; and up to a 51-percent decrease in dolphins in Louisiana s Barataria Bay.
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