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

The sleeping bear's eyes may have begun to open. Perhaps the Corps of Engineers is signaling that it will begin acknowledging that the management of the entirety of the Mississippi River is connected to the health of the coastal wetlands in Louisiana. In a front page story on Sunday July 5, 2009 in the Baton Rouge Advocate Richard Burgess writes an article entitled, Corps considers change in water flow into Atchafalaya. 

Nancy Powell, chief of the Corps' New Orleans district hydraulics and hydrologic branch, suggests that the Corps might operate the Old River Control Structure at the northern end of the Atchafalaya River in the interest of Louisiana coastal restoration and preservation. It seems like an obvious thing to do, but the reality and symbolism of the Corps making this philosophical shift in policy would be profound.

At a time when the Corps was just beginning to manage the Mississippi River for the purpose of navigation, the Red River was a tributary entering the Mississippi River at the northern side of what was called Turnbull Bend. In turn, the Atchafalaya River was a distributary exiting the main channel of the Mississippi River at the southern side of Turnbull Bend. In 1831, Captain Henry M. Shreve, an early agent of the Corps, dug a canal through the neck of Turnbull bend. This canal called "Shreve's Cut" changed the flow of the river in a profound way. 

Shreve's Cut made it more likely the Mississippi River's main channel would change course and adopt the course of the Atchafalaya River's channel as the Mississippi River's main channel. In the 1950's, the Corps built the Old River Control Structure in an attempt to rectify its earlier misstep digging Shreve's Cut  and to prevent the eventuality of the Mississippi River changing course from happening. The structure has since then been used primarily for this purpose. And undoubtedly an important purpose it is. The economic damage that would be caused by the Mississippi River's main channel changing courses to adopt the Atchafalaya River's channel as the Mississippi River's own main channel would be extraordinary. 

The America's Wetlands web site has a good description of the Old River Control Structure and the history of Turnbull Bend along with some useful diagrams. The section of the web site is called Controlling the River.   

The operation of the Old River Control Structure at Simmesport is the very essence of management of the Mississippi River. The Corps has not historically even considered managing the river north of the Louisiana coastal zone with consideration of the impact of those actions on the coast of Louisiana. The Corps has, heretofore, managed the Mississippi River north of the Louisiana coastal zone as though the Mississippi River to the North of the coastal zone was not casually connected to coastal land loss in Louisiana.

By acknowledging the connection of the Old River Control Structure to coastal restoration and preservation, the Corps might manage the distribution of sediment load of the Mississippi and Red Rivers in a more strategic way to aid with coastal restoration and preservation projects. The gates or "dam" at the Old River Control Structure were built to allow for the passage of sediment in the river through the gates. This allows sediment to flow into the Atchafalaya River or remain in the Mississippi River at the Corps' choice. This design is different from other large earthen dams in the Mississippi River drainage basin that trap virtually all the sediment that enters the reservoir behind the dam. This, of course, suggests that dams could be built that do not trap sediment in the reservoir behind them, but that is another story entirely.

The idea that the Corps could operate the Old River Control Structure to help with coastal restoration and preservation in Louisiana is a small gesture. The Corps has not even yet decided what to do. Nevertheless, the acknowledgment of the connection is symbolically significant.  I have to agree with the Corps' Ms. Powell as quoted in the Baton Rouge Advocate article, "It's kind of exciting."

Erich P Rapp.

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The Mississippi River does not carry enough sediment through Louisiana to sustain much less restore coastal Louisiana. That has been my nightmare fear since I began studying this subject years ago. It has also been a theme of this blog and an important argument for the monetary liability of the federal government for the damage to coastal wetlands in Louisiana. Unfortunately, the situation may be even worse than I thought.

I have long believed that one of the most important causes of coastal land loss in Louisiana has been the construction of dams and slackwater navigation pools in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. The most significant of these tributary dam systems have been in the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers. These dams have all been built by the federal government with the most important built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and additional dams built by the Bureau of Reclamation in the United States Department of the Interior. The construction of these dams has reduced the sediment load in the Mississippi River passing through Louisiana by over 50%.

Over the last year or so, I have traded a small set of email correspondence with Michael D Blum, a now former geology and geophysics professor at Louisiana State University. Blum has been conducting research on the amount of sediment carried by the Mississippi River and the river's potential for carrying sediment in the absence of the dam systems. His research is being published on Sunday June 28th in Nature Geoscience in an article entitled,  "Drowning of the Mississippi Delta due to insufficient sediment supply and global sea-level rise." A fee is required for the purchase of the article. Blum's co-author is LSU professor emeritus of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Harry H. Roberts.

Sadly, this article concludes that even if the dams in the Mississippi River tributaries were removed, the rate of global sea rise would still more than offset the sediment deposit from the Mississippi River were the river and the coastal wetlands reconnected.

If this research is accepted as accurate, this leaves Louisiana with some rather stark and unpleasant decisions that need to be made. Some of the early decisions will concern what efforts will be made to reconnect the river to the wetlands and how will the limited sediment supply be allocated to sustaining some portion of the coast. Implicit in this decision is the question of what areas will be abandon. I again also raise the question of whether the federal government should be held financially responsible for the loss of the coastal wetlands in a court of law. A related judicial question concerns whether the federal government should be compelled to consider the impact on coastal Louisiana of actions in the management of the Mississippi River system including the tributaries far to the north of Louisiana. Numerous existing federal statutes would appear to require this consideration.

Congratulations to Dr. Michael Blum and Dr. Harry H. Roberts on the publication of their article and on the completion of his research.

Erich P. Rapp.

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The State of Louisiana is facing difficult funding problems in relation to their contribution to levee improvements in Southeastern Louisiana scheduled for completion in 2011. Louisiana is being asked to contribute $1.2 billion to the efforts that the federal government is undertaking to improve the levees in and around New Orleans.

Louisiana would like to schedule the payment of the $1.2 billion over 30 years. So far, the federal government is unwilling to go along with this extended payment schedule. Governor Jindal has advised the public that he is committed to paying the Louisiana share regardless of the payment schedule. Nevertheless, paying the entire sum in the next couple of years will put extreme strains on the Louisiana budget.

If the payment schedule is short, coastal wetland restoration efforts will suffer badly. Undoubtedly, all of Louisiana's money currently budgeted for coastal restoration will be diverted to the levee improvements should the state be required to pay the entire $1.2 billion tab in a two year period.

Again and again, the federal government fails to see the big picture. The condition that requires the levees around New Orleans and demands restoration of coastal wetlands is a problem caused by federal action. The federal government's management of the Mississippi River has caused the problem. By building dams, reservoirs, locks, and slack water navigation pools, the federal government has taken the sediment out of the Mississippi River necessary to the maintenance of the coastal wetlands in Louisiana. This federal action is destroying coastal Louisiana.

Many experts of late have spoke of multiple lines of defense from hurricanes, i.e., wetlands backed up by levees. If the federal government and the government of Louisiana are to address the problems presented by coastal land loss, they need to fix the levees and rebuild the wetlands. We cannot just do one or the other. Forcing Louisiana to divert every available dollar to levee improvements will not serve the nation's interests.

The press has reported these financial difficulties a number of times in recent weeks. On Friday July 18, 2008 Mark Schleifstein wrote a story entitled: Jindal presses Bush over levee costs in the New Orleans Times Picayune. The Associated Press issued a similar story published in several newspapers such as the Saturday July 19, 2008 in Southern Mississippi's Sun Herald entitled Jindal seeks 30 years to repay.

Erich P Rapp. 

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The National Academies Press has published its First Report from the NRC Committee on the Review of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Program. The NRC is the National Research Council which group acts as the official scientific adviser to the federal government. 

The report is available for free download as a .pdf file from the National Academies web site. This is an important report worth reading. This report is a response to the Corps' March 2008 report entitled, "Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Technical Report." In turn, the Corps' report was a response to a request from Congress for a category 5 hurricane protection plan for South Louisiana.

The Corps' report commendably speaks to the need to preserve and restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands in order to provide hurricane protection for the region. Nevertheless, one of the NRC committee's leading complaints about the Corps' plan is that it relies upon "sustaining the existing landscape" and yet the Corps has provided no evidence that it is possible to sustain the existing landscape. In this regard, the NRC committee complains that the Corps has not done the basic analysis of sediment available in the Mississippi River for a determination of what portion of the coastal wetlands in Louisiana can be sustained. If insufficient sediment exists in the Mississippi River water flow to sustain the existing coastal environment then the Corps' entire report is ill conceived.

If the sediment budget in the river is insufficient to sustain the existing coastal environment, the Corps and others will have to make some difficult decisions about what parts of the coastal landscape can be saved and what will not be saved. The Corps has not addressed this issue.

This missing analysis takes us to the core of the problem that I have written about in this blog since its outset. The most fundamental cause of coastal wetland loss in Louisiana, particularly south of New Orleans where below a certain point there are no levees, is lack of sediment in the Mississippi River water flow as the result of dams and reservoirs as well as locks and slack water pools in the northern parts of the Mississippi River drainage basin. These river structures reduce the sediment load in the river.

A reduced sediment load in the river is good for navigation and bad for coastal wetland building. The Corps must deal with a conflict between those competing interests. The Corps operating north of Louisiana wants a river with a reduced sediment load because that river condition makes it easier to maintain a navigation channel of a set depth. Less sediment in the river flow means less dredging of the navigation channel for the Corps.

The Corps in Louisiana has the same concern with navigation, but also has a need for sediment load for use in coastal wetland restoration and preservation. Those interests compete with one another to some extent. Unfortunately, coastal wetland protection and restoration in Louisiana does not get much, if any, consideration when the Corps makes a decision north of Louisiana adversely impacting on sediment load in the Mississippi River that will ultimately reach Louisiana. The interests of navigation prevail in such considerations north of Louisiana and most of those considerations within Louisiana.

The Corps needs to make a careful examination of the Mississippi River sediment load as it relates to proposed coastal wetland restoration and preservation projects. The Corps also needs to begin considering sediment load as it relates to Louisiana's coastal restoration and protection needs when it makes decisions along the entire course of the Mississippi River drainage system. Until this analysis is done and this consideration is given, no one will know what can really be done to preserve and restore Louisiana's coastal wetlands.

The current approach is to view coastal wetland preservation and restoration in Louisiana as a matter of regional decision making in relation to management of the Mississippi River in Louisiana. In reality, In reality, the preservation and restoration of Louisiana's coastal wetlands requires considered decision making across the entire Mississippi River drainage basin covering much of the continental United States.

Erich P Rapp.

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As I have written many times before, the principal cause of coastal wetland loss is the reduction of sediment load in the Mississippi River. The reduction in sediment load has been caused primarily by the construction of locks and dams in the Mississippi River drainage basin, and the dams in the Missouri and Arkansas River systems are the most significant.

For the Corps of Engineers representatives working north of Louisiana, the reduction in the sediment load is a good thing. If your primary concern is navigation in the river system, a river with little sediment load is a good river. It means the Corps does not have to dredge the river bed as much.

In contrast for the Corps of Engineers in New Orleans tasked with coastal wetland restoration, a river with a limited sediment load makes their restoration job harder. Of course, the Corps in New Orleans is also given the task of maintaining navigation on the Southern course of the river. Thus, the Corps in New Orleans also prefers the smallest possible sediment load for management of their navigation responsibilities.

Which objective does the Corps serve? How do they decide which objective to serve and when? As far as I can determine, the Corps gives no consideration to the sediment load in the Mississippi River system needed for restoration and preservation of Louisiana's coastal wetlands when the Corps makes decisions about river management north of Louisiana. As a practical matter, the Corps cannot serve both objectives with no oversight and be expected to preserve and restore Louisiana's coast. The navigation interest extends for most of the river system course and the focus on preservation and restoration of coastal wetlands is an active part of decision making only in the Southernmost section of the river. Preservation and restoration of coastal wetlands loses and navigation wins in that internal competition at the Corps. As a practical matter, it cannot be any other way. 

The responsibilities for decision making need to be split and a neutral third party needs to be responsible for balancing the two interests.

A good recent news article expressing concern with the negative impact of sediment load on navigation can be found in the Baton Rouge Advocate on April 12, 2008. The article was written by John A Colvin and is entitled, Mississippi River sediment piling up.

Erich.

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The Corps of Engineers will soon begin work on the Lower Mississippi River Resource Assessment which was authorized in the Water Resource Development Act of 2000. The study will take two years and cost about $500,000. The study area includes the portion of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois which is the confluence of the Ohio River with the Mississippi River to the mouth of the Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico. The study area includes 954 miles of the river and also includes 2.7 million acres of the river's natural floodplain (now protected from flooding by levees).

The study will consider aspects of the Mississippi River beyond navigation and flood control. The study will assess ways to enhance recreation, restore flood plain and restore aquatic habitat. The study will also consider some tributaries of the Mississippi River.

What Louisiana really needs is an assessment of the impact of management of the Mississippi River north of Louisiana on coastal wetlands in Louisiana. The scope of this study seems broad enough for such considerations, but will they be included?

The news coverage of this river assessment includes an article in the February 4, 2008 Memphis Commercial Appeal entitled River Resource Assessment will last two years and coast up to $500,000.

Erich.

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The situation in the Mississippi River where more sediment than ever is going into the river and less sediment than ever is reaching the coastal wetlands in Louisiana as described in the recent National Research Council report on the Mississippi River is not unique to the Mississippi River.

The problem is an international problem. On May 21, 2005, Science News Online published a report concerning river sediment entitled, Muddy Waters: More sediment is entering rivers, but less makes it to the sea. In turn, this Science news article was directly related to the publication of the scientific research paper entitled, Impact of Humans on the Flux of Terrestrial Sediment to the Global Coastal Ocean. This research article was published in the April 15, 2005 issue of Science Magazine in Volume 308 at page 376.

The conclusion of the Science news article and the research paper cited above are that humans have simultaneously increased the sediment transport by global rivers through soil erosion by approximately 2.3 billion metric tons per year, yet reduced the flux of sediment reaching the world's coasts by approximately 1.4 billion metric tons per year because of retention within reservoirs. Further over 100 billion metric tons of sediment and 1 to 3 billion metric tons of carbon are now sequestered in reservoirs constructed in the last 50 years.  Further still, coastal retreat is directly influenced by the reduction of river-supplied sediment.

The accumulation of sediment behind dams in accompanying reservoirs (particularly in the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers) as well as the accumulation of sediment behind locks in accompanying slack water navigation pools in other parts of the Mississippi River drainage system are contributing directly to the loss of coastal wetlands in Louisiana to the open sea.

Erich P Rapp.

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On October 16, 2007, the National Research Council issued a press release concerning the publication of their upcoming report entitled, Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act: Progress, Challenges and Opportunities. A pre-publication copy of the report is also available online as a .pdf file. 

Again, the National Research Council has emphasized an important theme related to coastal wetland loss in Louisiana. The report strongly suggests that the Mississippi River system including the major tributaries need to be analyzed and administered as a whole and not in parts. Decisions are often made in relation to segments of the system without regard to the impact of those decisions on other parts of the river. The report specifically mentions the lack of sufficient sediment in the Mississippi River reaching the wetlands along the river in Louisiana as an example of this management issue. Inevitably decisions made far to the north of Louisiana along the Mississippi River determine the sediment transport of the river as it reaches the wetlands in Louisiana.

The people in Louisiana and the rest of the Mississippi River basin need to remember this truth when they take action in relation to the Mississippi River.

Erich P. Rapp 

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The Upper Mississippi River contains twenty-nine (29) locks and dams creating slackwater navigational pools to allow barge navigation on the upper part of the river from north of St. Louis to Minneapolis.  Congress authorized the construction of this system of locks and dams in 1930 and the Corps of Engineers completed construction by 1940.

This navigation system is very important to the economy of Louisiana and its neighbors to the north. The original locks and dams are now out of date and need to be replaced. The new and larger system of locks and dams that are proposed are also very important to the economic interests of Louisiana and the states upstream on the Mississippi River from Louisiana. The people of Louisiana should, and I am sure do support the replacement of these locks and dams.

This construction project also brings other opportunities. The original locks and dams caused damage to the Louisiana coastal wetlands by disrupting sediment transportation in the Mississippi River. Now that the locks and dams need to be replaced, a new opportunity exists to consider the impact that the locks and dams have on coastal Louisiana. The new locks and dams could be designed, constructed and operated to improve sediment transport in the Mississippi River toward the coastal wetlands of Louisiana. Although dams are potentially damaging to coastal regions, dams and locks can be designed, built and managed to minimize their impact on the coastal region. One book that describes how this can be done is called Reservoir Sedimentation Handbook: Design and Management of Dams, Reservoirs, and Watersheds for Sustainable Use by Gregory L. Morris and Jiahua Fan. 

The National Research Council of the National Academies prepared a Review of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Restructured Upper Mississippi-Illinois River Waterway Feasibility Study in 2004. On page 27 of this review, the National Research Council made its case for better ecology in the Mississippi River through "Integrated Systems Planning." Issues related to the Louisiana coastal environment were discussed. The report stated:

"A broad holistic prospective is also necessary because of the significant implication of Mississippi River water quality and sediment transport for downstream regions in and along the Gulf of Mexico. The Corps should thus, to the maximum extent feasible, consider factors such as water quality, flood damage reduction, and sediment transport in order to reflect a more holistic approach to dealing with the diverse management issues in the UMR-IWW."

One of the keys to the long term survival and restoration of the coastal wetlands in Louisiana is Mississippi River sediment transport. This issue is often ignored when water resource planning is done upstream from Louisiana. Such is the case here.

The Corps contends that they are not authorized by Congress to consider the impact of the existing Upper Mississippi-Illinois River Waterway locks on the coastal wetlands of Louisiana when planning the construction of new larger locks. As a result, the Corps has not considered the impact of this construction project on coastal Louisiana. Not only do a number of federal statutes allow consideration of the Louisiana coastal wetlands in this situation, but the consideration is arguably mandated.

The federal government as well as the government and people of Louisiana should consider the impact on coastal Louisiana of projects undertaken in the Mississippi River drainage basin upstream from Louisiana. The health of the Louisiana coastal wetlands requires it.

Erich P. Rapp

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I appreciate the people of Pennsylvania for being leaders in the dam removal movement. Dams and locks damage river systems. Dams and locks in the Mississippi River drainage basin damage the Louisiana coastal wetlands by trapping sediment that would otherwise travel to the river delta and help sustain the coastal wetlands.  

The Harrisburg Patriot-News posted an article on Pennlive.com on August 6, 2007 entitled: Old Dams: Removing these barriers allows waterways to regain free-flow. 

Over 1/3 of Pennsylvania is within the Mississippi River drainage basin. According to the Patriot-News, Pennsylvania has removed 70 dams in the past decade and is removing an additional 3 dams on one creek in the next year. Although the removal of a dam in Pennsylvania will not directly improve the health of the coastal wetlands in Louisiana because so many dams and locks remain in place between Pennsylvania and Louisiana, the dam removal movement should be encouraged.

Officials in Louisiana should monitor the water resource policies of other states. They should encourage good decisions and discourage bad ones. What is done in the Mississippi River drainage basin outside of Louisiana matters, but is often ignored in Louisiana.

Erich P Rapp.

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