In 2017, Louisiana lawmakers passed a bill that got little attention at the time but had the potential to make a big difference, long term, in getting coastal restoration projects done more quickly.
The legislation, dubbed Pay for Success by the Gov. John Bel Edwards administration, established the framework for an alternative delivery model for coastal restoration projects that enabled the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to contract with the private sector to deliver a predetermined amount of restored marshland—and assume all the risk.
Under the model, known as performance-based contracting, the contractor finances the project and handles everything from acquiring land rights and securing permits to design engineering and construction. The state doesn’t have to pay until a project is delivered, and even then it doesn’t have to remit the full amount until several years later, once the marsh had proven it is sustainable, hence the term “performance based.”
More than two years later, Pay for Success has yet to be implemented. Earlier this year, the CPRA issued its first RFP seeking a performance-based contractor for a marsh restoration project in the Barataria Basin in Plaquemines Parish. But in August, the agency threw out the four proposals that came back, saying they all were too expensive.
Contractors, who each spent hundreds of thousands of dollars acquiring the land rights needed to even bid on the project, are frustrated and raising questions about why an approach that seems like such an ideal solution has yet to be deployed.
Read the full story from the Nov. 5 edition of Business Report about what is holding these projects back.
