Coastal Projects

Coastal restoration on the cheap

Coyotes aren’t the first animals that come to mind when Louisianians think about species benefitting from coastal restoration. Nonetheless, South Lafourche Levee District President Windell Curole said the 40-plus-mile stretch of levee that runs from Larose to Golden Meadow and back is inundated with them.[…]

Coastal Projects

In comparison

While the South Lafourche Levee District managed to orchestrate a marsh creation project for only $20,000 an acre, the reality of restoration work in Louisiana is that such undertakings are usually more expensive.[…]

Coastal Projects

Bygone barriers

It’s a rather simple matter to underestimate the worth of Louisiana’s barrier islands. When the freshwater river flow slacks off a bit and shrimp are able inch closer to the coastline, barrier islands attract anglers and guides like moths to a flame.[…]

Coastal Projects

Cash for the coast

While all of the manpower and dirt-turning is located on Louisiana’s coastline and in the Gulf of Mexico, some might argue that the real grunt work of coastal restoration takes place some 1,200 miles away in Washington, D.C. — where the state expects to get the lion’s share of the $50 billion needed for its 50-year Master Plan that has been approved by the Louisiana Legislature and Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.[…]

Coastal Projects

Placement and time

Over the course of the 50-year Master Plan, officials say the sediment diversion projects in the document could create up to 300 square miles of new marsh at a cost of $4.1 billion, using a mix of funding ranging from federal dollars to offshore energy royalties.[…]

Coastal Projects

Funding lags research

While the study of river hydrodynamics was first proposed in 2004, it wasn’t funded until 2011. So the scientists working on the 2012 edition of the master plan put together preliminary planning models that prepared the way for the more-detailed operating models to be developed when the latest data on the lower river became available. That work was cheered in peer reviews, even though it was based on river data that, in some cases, were decades old, researchers said.[…]