Louisiana could save hundreds of millions of dollars if it expedited a number of its coastal restoration projects instead of kicking them down the road while waiting for financing, a new report by The Water Institute of the Gulf says.
The report, titled Changing Restoration Costs, examines the state’s 2012 coastal master plan, a 50-year, $50 billion strategy for saving and protecting Louisiana’s eroding coastline.
While money may be tight now for the state, increasing inflation rates and worsening environmental conditions could dramatically raise project costs over time, the report says. Additionally, water levels in coastal areas will rise as rates of subsidence and sea levels increase, requiring crews to purchase more materials for the projects.
The state could expedite the projects by selling bonds or leveraging private dollars to generate more capital, the report says..
The institute examined seven distinct, 2,000-acre locations across coastal Louisiana and applied five different scenarios of subsidence and rising sea levels to each one. The institute used cost analyses from the 2012 master plan and applied inflation rates over 10-year increments of up to 30-years to develop its findings.
The report doesn’t outline one giant cost savings estimate, per se, for starting the projects early. But according to the report’s scenarios, merely bonding out one specific project saved the state some $180 million, and bonding out another project instead of waiting 10 years for financing saved 30% of the estimated cost.
The analysis was commissioned by the Coast Builders Coalition and Restore the Mississippi River Delta and executed by the institute.
Read the full report, as well as a news release announcing it.
