Realistic Alternatives for Rebuilding and Saving Coastal Louisiana

Louisiana’s coastal communities do not have decades to wait on a promise that “may” build minimal land.  We need a 5-year plan, not a 50-year plan.  The better, more efficient way to save our coast is to build land now through dredging and restoring barrier islands and ridges that once protected our communities from storm surge.

Despite pleas to consider alternatives that would lessen the impact on Louisiana’s fisheries and coastal communities and actually get the job done, all six alternatives considered by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) involve moving massive volumes of freshwater to flood Barataria Basin. Not a single alternative – dredging, smaller diversions, or any other – that would limit the destruction to the estuary and fisheries was given real consideration.

Let’s take a look at these practical, cost-effective and realistic alternatives to a $2 billion, 50-year flood.

Dredging

It is widely accepted that dredging has numerous and immediate beneficial results that do not cause the harsh impacts of a freshwater flood. (Even CPRA routinely uses dredging). In fact, dredging shows a much more promising and instantaneous net gain on land and storm surge protection. Negative impacts from dredging operations are minimal – almost nonexistent – compared to diversions, and dredge materials can be strategically and accurately placed where desired and as high as needed to build ridges, islands, etc.

Storm Surge Protection Barriers 

The current diversion plan needs to be reengineered to create meaningful storm surge protection. What’s on the table now simply doesn’t do that.  Even CPRA acknowledges that the amount of land to be built by the project through diverted river sediment over 50 years will not keep pace with the amount of land lost through erosion by wind and waves over that same time. This reality is due to the absence of real storm surge protection offered by the current diversion plan. As such, based on what the diversion will do versus what it purports to do, this plan is an egregious misuse of available funds and creates a false hope for coastal communities that are desperate for meaningful action.

Forested Ridge Systems

Forested ridges and 8-foot trees would dramatically reduce environmental impacts by creating a “speed bump” that protects parishes from wave and surge energy during a storm. In addition, forested ridges could ultimately reduce insurance costs because FEMA recognizes not only levees and flood walls, but also coastal features as well when determining eligibility costs.