Proponents of Mid-Barataria diversion warn against abandoning wetlands

Yahoo

13-05-2025

Advocates and supporters of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project rallied on the Capitol steps in support of the stalled coastal restoration plan. (Elise Plunk/Louisiana Illuminator)
Supporters of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project took to the State Capitol steps Monday afternoon, urging state leaders to advance the stalled coastal restoration project.
The Mid-Barataria project, part of the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan to rebuild wetlands with diverted sediment and water from the Mississippi River, is often hailed as the cornerstone project in Louisiana's fight to rebuild its rapidly sinking coastline.
Gov. Jeff Landry has railed against the plan's high cost and impact to fisheries, blaming a key Army Corps construction permitting loss on former Gov. John Be Edwards. The pause has prompted increasing uncertainty as to whether the massive coastal restoration plan will continue as originally designed.
Advocates of the project worry any alternate plans will mean further delays or – worse yet – inactivity that could spell doom for Louisiana's coast.
'Now is the time for courage and action,' Simone Maloz, campaign director of Restore the Mississippi River Delta, said during a news conference in concert with the Capitol demonstration. Supporters held aloft signs with phrases promoting sediment diversions printed boldly across pictures of Louisiana's coast as speakers took turns at the lectern to speak about the uncertain project.
'Honor the legacy of our coastal program and recommit to the bold vision our coast demands, including resuming construction on the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion,' Maloz added.
'The river built the land, now we must let it help us heal it,' the Rev. Ernest Dison Sr., pastor at a church in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, said during the rally. His neighborhood went underwater in 2005 when storm surge from Hurricane Katrina exposed design flaws in floodwalls along the Industrial Canal and Mississippi River Gulf Outlet. Decades of wetlands diminishment allowed the storm surge to reach the city largely unabated.
Dison said his faith and environmental stewardship are closely entwined, and the risk storms pose to his community convinced him to speak out in support of the coastal master plan.
'We need to protect our communities,' he said. 'This Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project gives us hope. We can't afford to waste that opportunity to be good stewards of what we've been given.'
Money problems
The Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority and Louisiana Senate has approved more than $500 million for Mid-Barataria construction to begin despite its status being in limbo.
Opponents of the large-scale diversion, including those with fisheries interests, have floated the idea of using the money to build smaller sediment diversions. But whether funding can be redistributed that seamlessly is a question with no outright answer.
Louisiana's money for coastal restoration comes largely from a trust created with BP oil spill settlement dollars. A cohort of federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Interior, oversee the funds
Maloz said in an interview she is concerned an alternate plan might not get the same financial approval Mid-Barataria did from the trust overseers.
'[The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is] very tied to the damage that happened … that money is intended to mitigate and fix that problem,' she said. 'That's a huge question that is looming on the alternatives … is that the right project to mitigate for those injuries, for that natural resource damage that occurred from the oil spill?
Smaller scale diversions
Diversion advocates and scientists maintain smaller diversions aren't as effective at rebuilding wetlands, still sending fresh water into Barataria Bay but with less benefit.
Opponents fear the deluge of fresh water from the Mississippi River would alter the salt content of the brackish water, killing shrimp and oyster populations near shore and pushing other marine life away from the coast.
Ehab Meselhe, a Tulane University professor and scientist who worked on hydrologic modeling for the Mid-Barataria plan, published a number of peer-reviewed studies modeling smaller Mississippi River diversions. They involved moving a fraction of the water Mid-Barataria currently proposes. His findings: Less water meant less wetland growth.
'It's not going to move as much sediment, build as much land,' Meselhe said, all while concerns over impacts to oysters and shrimp stick around. 'There is no doubt… you will have the impacts, and definitely a lot less benefit.'
Even still, he emphasised the need to find a solution that involves and supports the people who live in the area.
'There is no silver bullet solution. Every time you touch the system, you will have benefits and you will have impacts,' Meselhe said. 'Some strategies are better than others … I think we need to sit at the table and see what are the palatable options that are out there, and these are the ones we need to pursue.'
Anne Milling, founder of post-Katrina advocacy group Women of the Storm, said in an interview that mitigation dollars tied to Mid-Barataria gave the plan actionable ways to support fisheries.
'Yes, it's our culture of Louisiana, which I love and adore and respect,' Milling said. 'You've got to remember that $375 million was set aside in the Mid-Barataria Diversion project to compensate and help the communities relocate from any disturbance from this diversion.'
'We cannot afford to take solutions off the table,' Maloz said, voicing her organization's support for small-scale diversions in other areas while still standing in support of Mid-Barataria.
'There was a really extensive process that said, 'This is the solution that matches the loss in that basin. This is what it needs for that overall long term health,'' she added.
Permit drama increases uncertainty
Controversy over a pulled construction permit and a social media fight between Landry and his predecessor, Edwards, have heightened tensions and uncertainty over the Mid-Barataria Sediment Division even further.
Landry delivered a harsh critique of Mid-Barataria last November, saying the threat it posed to the shrimp and oyster industry would 'break' Louisiana culture. His administration then issued a 90-day pause on all work related to the project on April 4, saying the high cost called for a smaller-scale diversion.
The Army Corps recently revoked a permit for the nearly $3 billion project, citing unreported documents, project uncertainty and lack of support from the current governor's administration as reasons to reconsider. Landry accused Edwards of purposely hiding a 500-page study from Army Corps officials.
Edwards countered Landry's claims, saying accusations of a cover-up are unfounded, and stressed that the report in question didn't change the science behind the Mid-Barataria plan, The Times-Picayune reported.
Maloz said she believed the project had everything it needed for approval, wanting more answers from the Army Corps decision.
'We feel like we went through this really extensive process that had science, that had people, that had communities all in mind to get us to a decision on both the permit and the funding,' she said. 'And now it feels like we have been entirely cut out of that process.'