Save Louisiana’s Coastal Life

Mission Statement: This website and public information campaign is designed to bring meaningful clarity and discussion to realistic and effective alternatives to the proposed $2 billion 50-year flood known as the Mid Barataria Diversion project.

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Delcambre's shrimp boats along Cajun Corridor Byway in Louisiana

Turn the tide on coastal land loss now.

Message from Lt. Governor Nungesser

Dear Friends and Fellow Louisianians

While our state can rightly boast of its abundance, beauty and unique culture and heritage, it is also faced with many challenges. Without a doubt, among the most daunting of these challenges is the reality and the threat of coastal land loss.  Scientists estimate that Louisiana loses the equivalent of a football field of coastal land every 100 minutes and that since the 1930’s more than 2,000 square miles of what was Louisiana has slipped beneath the encroaching waters of the Gulf of Mexico. 

Today, all parties – scientists, coastal community activists, elected officials and commercial and recreational fishermen-- agree: Something must be done. We must stop losing our coast and with it our coastal heritage, economy, and way of life. Simply put: Louisiana must turn the tide.

Over the past several years, many policy makers, their allies in the news media and others have spent enormous amounts of money promoting their belief that there’s only one way to save our coast. According to them, the proposed $2 billion Mid Barataria Sediment Diversion project is our state’s default, de facto and only workable solution to stopping and reversing coastal land loss. We’re told – at great expense to the taxpayer – on an almost daily basis that only a massive 50-year freshwater flood of parts of southeast Louisiana will solve our land loss problems.

But the people of southeast Louisiana know better.  They know what I know: We don’t have 50 years to save our coast. A $2 billion boondoggle isn’t sound public policy.  And alternatives exist that have been used successfully right here in Louisiana for years.  They know that this project is a freshwater flood and not a sediment diversion. And they know that the Mid Barataria Diversion will destroy south Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry, kill thousands of dolphins, wreck the economies of our coastal communities and the swamp the lives of generations of families and small businesses that make their livings and have staked their futures to life along our coast. 

I invite you to explore this website, get the facts and ask the tough questions about this critical life and death of Louisiana issue.  If you’re inclined to agree with me that Louisiana needs common sense and time-tested alternatives to a 50-year freshwater flood, please help spread the word about this website and the truth about the right way to save Louisiana’s coast.

For your concern and support of Louisiana’s commercial fisheries and the families, our wildlife and coastal heritage and economy, I thank you.

Lt. Governor William H. NungesserWilliam H. “Billy” Nungesser
Lt. Governor

 

 

 

Know the Effects of Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion

The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) claims the primary purpose of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion (MBSD) project is to reintroduce freshwater and sediment from the Mississippi River into the Basin to reestablish deltaic processes which will build, sustain, and maintain land. While the theory sounds good, and the proposed outcome is laudable, past experience and science based in the practical implementation prove this $2 billion plan won’t work.

CPRA and its proponents allege that the river will build land through sediment diversions, much the same way land was built 1,000 years ago.  But the Mississippi River today is not the same river it was then or even the same river of 100 years ago.  Dams and structures built in the northern sections of the river now capture the sediment we need to build land in coastal Louisiana.  Less than a quarter of the sediment that once flowed downstream actually make it down to south Louisiana today.

Dead Bottle Nose Dolphin

In fact, this proposed project will move 99% fresh river water and only 1% sediment. Even proponents acknowledge this fact. Sediment movement is merely a limited by-product of the flow of vast amounts of water. Notably, CPRA accurately refers to other diversion projects they have undertaken such as the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion and David Pond Freshwater Diversions. By re-branding MBSD as a “sediment diversion” project proponents are intentionally deceiving the people of Louisiana. This isn’t helpful or appropriate with so much at stake.

At an outrageous cost of $2 billion this ill-conceived river diversion is claimed to create 85,500 acres of wetlands by 2070, however, with no action at all, the basin will naturally gain 72,800 acres. That means this project will cost more than $150,000 per acre to generate a mere 12,700 acres of new marshland. The real cost to build minimal land below the water line are the risks to our wildlife and essential fish habitat, which will forever alter and damage our Sportsman’s Paradise.

Know the Effects of Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion

The true environmental or economic impacts of the MBSD have not been fully determined. How can we go forward with a project of this magnitude without looking at every aspect of the potential environmental impacts to our wildlife and commercial seafood industry? More than 35,000 Louisiana residents earn part or all their livings through commercial fisheries, the very industry which will be most heavily, negatively, and permanently impacted by this project.

What’s at Stake?
  • Communities
  • Wildlife
  • Essential Fish Habitat
  • Shrimping Industry
  • Oyster Industry
  • Bottlenose dolphins
  • Gulf Dead Zone

The Essential Fish Habitat as defined in the Magnuson Stevens Act in layman’s terms is referred to as a nest or nursery for a species. Damage to this is a violation of the above Act. Basically, if you destroy the nest or nursery, there will be no fish or shrimp or oysters. Congressman Graves was unable to get a waiver from Congress for the Essential Fish Habitat. What the diversion will do is kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Maybe this will help the public understand what is at stake.

Dr. Moby Solangi, Director, Marine Mammal Institute

The diversion cannot build land above the existing water line.

Dr. Joseph Suhayda, former director, LSU Hurricane Center, currently Louisiana Water Resources Research Institute

The bottleneck dolphin population within the Mid Breton and Mid Barataria Basins are the canary in the coal mine for all marine life in the Gulf of Mexico. Once the canary dies, everything else will follow. This project will be the beginning of the end to the estuaries on both sides of the Mississippi River.

Dr. Moby Solangi, Director, Marine Mammal Institute

The declines are more severe than those estimated to have been caused by the DWH oil spill and will take place just as the stock is starting to recover from the oil spill. While the stock is estimated to recover fully from the DWH oil spill under the NAA scenario, this will not happen under the APA [Applicant’s Preferred Alternative] scenario.

"Predicted population consequences of low salinity associated with the proposed Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project on bottlenose dolphins in the Barataria Bay Estuarine System Stock"

Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling, University of St Andrews SMRU Consulting National Marine Mammal Foundation 13th May 2021

The project (based on the Applicant’s Preferred Alternative [APA]) will not only prevent the recovery of the BBES [Barataria Bay Estuarine System]Stock, but it will result in the functional extinction of dolphins in the West, Central, and Southeast strata of the stock area. The only dolphins remaining in the basin would live adjacent to the barrier islands, and even this group will become severely reduced over the 50-year planning horizon of the MBSD project.

Professor Len Thomas, University of St. Andrews Center for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modeling

All the damage mitigation efforts in the world won’t replace the decimated marine resources, commercial fisheries and coastal communities that will result from this diversion project.

Chalin Delaune Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board, Chairman

All of us in the fisheries industry knew this all along, the CPRA has always downplayed the effect on fisheries.

George Ricks President of the Save Louisiana Coalition

The wetland expected to be built by the MBSD is only 5% of the land lost since the 1930s and is not essential for the restoration of the coastal zone.

John Dale "Zach" Lea, Ph.D. Agricultural Economist

With wise management--management that plans for the expansion of our renewable-resource-based industries (like oysters, shrimp, crab, finfsh, etc.), we can combine coastal restoration and protection with the restoration of Louisiana’s Renewable Paradise.

John Dale "Zach" Lea, Ph.D. Agricultural Economist

Fast Facts

60%

Over 60% of the seafood harvested in the Gulf of Mexico comes from the Louisiana estuary.

$2.4

Louisiana’s commercial fisheries produce and sell $2.4 billion of seafood annually.

60-70%

Marine Mammal Institute have estimated a potential 60-70% mortality rate for bottlenose dolphin.

⅓

Louisiana produces ⅓ of all Seafood consumed in the United States, making Louisiana the second largest producer of seafood in the country.

NOAA models indicate that the diversion will create a near 6,000 square mile dead zone.
Much of our marine life will die and our vital commercial fisheries will die with it.