Coastal Desk

Uncertainty looms over plan to save coastal Louisiana

WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio | By Terry L. Jones (Floodlight)

Published January 27, 2025 at 12:05 PM CST

Louisiana’s ambitious plan to save and restore its coastline is stalled amid lawsuits seeking to halt the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project. And now Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has voiced his own concerns about the project which environmental advocates fear could stall the project indefinitely.

There’s still a lot of mixed messaging around whether Louisiana will move forward with a nearly $3 billion project that environmental advocates and experts have said is essential to repairing the state’s eroding coastline.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in December said there are “legitimate issues of concerns” tied to the project that are “impossible to ignore.” They include multiple legal challenges, rapidly escalating construction costs and negative impacts on local wildlife and fishing industry.

But the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s 2026 annual plan includes approximately $1.5 billion for construction costs through 2028 for the controversial Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project. The project is funded by the $8 billion-plus settlement Louisiana got from oil giant BP following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The project broke ground in 2023. It’s designed to reintroduce freshwater and sediment from the Mississippi River into the basin, rebuilding up to 30,000 acres of coastal wetlands over 50 years.

US Army Corps of Engineers Forester Andy Meier walks towards "the boneyard" in the Reno Bottoms at the Mississippi River where the degradation of floodplain forests continues due to a decade of high water on the river, excess flooding and invasive species as the Fish and Wildlife Service works to restore these areas on Tuesday July 18, 2023 in De Soto, Wis.

Coastal Desk

Along the Mississippi River, volunteers work to collect and plant acorns to save struggling forests

Madeline Heim, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

For the past few decades, the trees that grow in the Mississippi River floodplain, known as floodplain forests, have been struggling. Although they're named for their ability to withstand the river's seasonal flooding, they've recently been overwhelmed by higher water and longer-lasting floods. Government agencies and nonprofits are attempting to reverse the forestland decline by planting new trees and volunteers are key to the effort.

The 150-page proposed spending plan seems to indicate the state intends to follow through with the heavily debated project. Four federal agencies –- the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Interior, Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency — have warned Louisiana is in danger of having to repay the $2.26 billion earmarked for the project if the state did not commit to seeing the project through. The agencies oversee allocation of the Deepwater Horizon settlement.

In a letter to federal authorities, Landry noted his concerns are shared by the five state-level agencies that share authority with the federal government overseeing the use of the BP oil settlement funds — CPRA, the Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office.

Landry said the federal trustees don’t speak for the state agencies but that everyone involved remains committed to finding an “amicable resolution” that would allow the project to move forward. He called for more analysis to ensure the project would not have negative impacts to the ecosystem.

In their short response, the four federal trustees noted the project has been extensively studied with “over 13,000 pages of analysis that was compiled primarily by Louisiana scientists and resource managers with the input of thousands of Louisiana citizens.”

The Barataria Basin in Plaquemines Parish, La., is the site of a nearly $3 billion project to reconnect the Mississippi River to the estuary to restore wetlands and improve the ecosystem. The area has suffered from decades of land loss due to climate change-fueled storms and flooding. But environmental advocates fear Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s continued concerns about the project could hinder it from ever getting done.