Researchers at Tulane University recently released a report that made national headlines and caused a stir in coastal engineering circles.
“But most people in Louisiana, at least as far north as here in Baton Rouge, likely didn’t even notice it,” writes Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel in her latest column. “Coastal news, like much environmental news, elicits a yawn from many dry land dwellers.”
But Riegel says the evidence in the recent study, however, confirms just how dire Louisiana’s coastal land loss situation really is. Using a methodology called optical data, scientists measured the rate at which part of the Mississippi Delta was created several hundred years ago and then compared that with the rate of land loss today.
“The numbers are troubling. Land has been disappearing at a rate of between 15 and 20 square miles per year for the past century—some five to 10 times greater than the rate at which it was created,” Riegel writes. “This is particularly bad news for those working to save the coast because their Plan A centers on man-made sediment diversion projects that will redirect the river in new directions to create new wetlands. Everyone agrees this is the right approach. But the new data confirms that even the best sediment diversion project under the best conditions will only replace a fraction of what is being lost.”
Riegel says the latest research has confirmed what many who live along Louisiana’s shrinking coast have known all along: We can only save some coastal land, and what we do manage to save will look very different than it does today.
And that means now is the time to try to answer some tough questions.
“How do we allocate limited resources? Where should we undertake sediment diversion projects to achieve maximum benefit? What do we do for the communities that will gradually wash away?” Riegel wonders. “More immediately, how can we speed up the federal permitting process so mega projects that are on the drawing board can move forward more quickly?”
Read the full column. Send your comments to editor@businessreport.com.
