Louisiana Coastal Wetlands Lawyer & Attorney : Erich P. Rapp : Kean Miller Law Firm : Serving New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Louisiana

A recent article in the Geophysical Research Letters entitled, Post-glacial sediment load and subsidence in coastal Louisiana by Erik R. Ivins, Roy K Dokka, and Ronald G. Blom concluded that heavy sediment deposited in the Mississippi River delta at the end of the last ice age has caused coastal Louisiana in the Mississippi River delta to sink. This process is expected to continue for hundreds of years. The process will likely cause the area in question to subside over three feet in the next two hundred years.

The sinking of this land will likely be compounded by a general sea level rise from global warming. These factors will make the area more vulnerable to hurricanes and tropical storms. Of course, the hurricanes and tropical storms will then themselves do further damage to the coastal wetlands.

News Accounts related to this research paper can also be found at;

Associated Press: Sediment Make New Orleans Sink - February 1, 2008

Environmental News Service: Ancient Glacial Sediments Drag Down Louisiana's Sinking Coast - February 10, 2008 

Erich P Rapp

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Although efforts to stem coastal wetland loss in Louisiana are already grossly underfunded, the Corps of Engineers is seeking reimbursement for a part of the cost of dredging the Mississippi River to maintain the navigation channel from the budget for coastal restoration projects authorized and funded pursuant to the Breaux Act. See the editorial in the New Orleans Time Picayune on Monday February 18, 2008 and the related article in the New Orleans Times Picayune on Thursday February 14, 2008.

The Mississippi River Commission, which is related to and controlled by the Corps of Engineers, is taking the position that the State of Louisiana and the Corps of Engineers must pay for any increase in dredging costs that result from any coastal restoration project in Louisiana that diverts water and sediment from the Mississippi River.

Officials for the State of Louisiana believe that the transfer of this cost to the Breaux Act coastal restoration projects will effectively shut down the restoration projects.

Interestingly, Garret Graves, the Chairman of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and member of the Breaux Act task force suggested that perhaps the Corps should be responsible for the damage to the Louisiana coastal wetlands that resulted from the Corps management of the Mississippi River.

Melanie Goodman, the Corps' Breaux Act program manager replied that actions related to navigation "a century ago" which are damaging the coastal wetlands in Louisiana are in the past and not subject to reimbursement.

Of course, this entire blog is dedicated to the idea that the Corps is making decisions and undertaking actions everyday that adversely impact the Louisiana coastal wetlands and that the continuing series of interconnected decisions dating back many years is, in fact the responsibility of the Corps of Engineers and the federal government.

The Corps' two part defense is that it did not know they were damaging the coastal wetlands of Louisiana many years ago when they built dams and levees on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. This is, of course, not true. The Corps has known since the 19th century that the coast of Louisiana was subsiding and that the sediment from the Mississippi River offset the subsidence.

The additional implication from the Corps' claim about the past is that the Corps is not taking new actions today that adversely impact on the coast of Louisiana. This is also not true. The Corps makes management decisions about the Mississippi River and its tributaries such as the Missouri River and the Ohio River, everyday that deny or reduce sediment transport to the coast of Louisiana. In many ways, an analytical disconnect exists between management of the more northern portions of the Mississippi River drainage basin and the coast of Louisiana. The analysis of Corps projects in the Missouri River or the upper Mississippi River or the Ohio River almost never consider the impact of these projects on sediment transport to the coast of Louisiana, and those decisions and actions continue day after day and year after year up to the present and likely far into the future. The Corps' suggestion that the damage they have caused to Louisiana's coast is the result of actions far in the past is simply not true. It is also the result of events planned and executed in the present.

Erich P. Rapp.

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Mark Schleifstein reported in the Monday January 28, 2008 Times Picayune that the Corps of Engineers may propose the buy out of certain low lying properties as part of their comprehensive plan to protect south Louisiana from a catastrophic hurricane.

The areas in question would include the southernmost parts of Slidell, Mandeville, and Lacombe on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain; Delacroix and Reggio in St. Bernard Parish; Ruddock in St. John the Baptist Parish; Lafitte and Barataria in Jefferson Parish; and a number of communities on both sides of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish.

In part, I applaud the Corps willingness to accept some financial responsibility for the loss of land on the Louisiana coast and the economic damage that this loss of land has caused to land owners in the region. Of course, the scope of the acceptance of responsibility is a function of the price that the Corps is willing to pay for that which they buy.

The move also presents some reasons for concern. The offer to purchase low lying land on the coast of Louisiana suggests a conceptual move by the Corps from a restoration and preservation of coastal land strategy to a retreat from the subsiding land strategy.

This trend needs to be monitored closely.

Erich.

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On January 10-11, 2008, a two day conference on the Atchafalaya River was held in Baton Rouge. Over 150 faculty members from Louisiana universities, representatives of various state and federal agencies and interested individuals attended the conference. The purpose of the meeting was to review what people know about the river and its surrounding environment, to report on recent and ongoing research related to the river, and to identify information gaps that have a negative impact on decision making by land and water managers and government policy makers. The program included 30 presentations on research being conducted in relation to the Atchafalaya River and the surrounding basin

The Atchafalaya River is a 140 mile long distributary channel of the MIssissippi River. The delta at the Gulf end of the river is the only actively building delta in the Gulf of Mexico. The Atchafalaya transports 100% of the Red River sediment and 25% of the Mississippi River sediment. Because the gates at the Old River Control structure which joins the Mississippi River and the Atchafalaya River do not trap sediment in the way that other locks and dams do, the Atchafalaya River delta is allowed to continue a building process from the deposit of sediment.  Over time not only is the river delta building but the Atchafalaya basin itself is also naturally filling in and evolving from open water to cypress swamp to bottomland forest.

The delta building process that continues for now in the Atchafalaya is the same process that has ceased to function in the Mississippi River delta. This failure of this process has been the principal cause of the loss of coastal wetlands in Louisiana which, of course, is the subject of this blog. The study of the ongoing delta building process in the Atchafalaya river and basin is thus worthwhile to better understanding events in the Mississippi River delta.   

Erich.

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