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

If Gustav comes ashore on the path that is currently being projected, the coastal wetlands of Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes will likely be damaged. The current projected path is diagonal across these wetland areas.

These wetlands were build during an earlier time when the path of the Mississippi River was further to the West than its current course. This has been an area of significant coastal wetland loss, and it is a particularly fragile area because of the absence of new sediment being deposited from the Mississippi River system.

In 1905, Bayou Lafourche, a former distributary channel of the Mississippi River was separated from the river by a levee. Now, none of the sediment bearing water from the Mississippi River enters Bayou Lafourche or reaches these wetland areas. The wetlands around Houma, Louisiana in Terrebonne Parish are also very fragile and vulnerable to damage and loss. This area was the path of an even earlier channel of the Mississippi River.

One section of the central coast of Louisiana does have river delta land building capacity. This is the area around the mouth of the Atchafalaya River. This area can to some extent recover from a hurricane damaging the wetlands.

Those responsible for coastal wetland restoration in Louisiana are also considering some re-connection of the sediment bearing waters of the Mississippi River to Bayou Lafourche. This would seem to be a good idea whose time has come.

Erich P Rapp.

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Ducks Unlimited is a friend to the movement for the restoration of Louisiana's coastal wetlands. Bob Drew, the manager of conservation programs for Ducks Unlimited has properly stated that state and federal agencies are the only ones that have the capacity to implement large scale coastal restoration programs which Ducks Unlimited supports.

For this reason among others, Ducks Unlimited announced the appointment of Jennifer Grand as the Louisiana government affairs director for Ducks Unlimited. Grand is based out of their Lafayette office. For more information on the appointment of Ms Grand, see the April 10, 2008 article in the Lafayette Advertiser entitled: Wetlands warrior: Conservation organization creates post.

Erich P Rapp.

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The Baton Rouge Advocate published an article on Friday February 29, 2008 entitled, Southwest La. wants coastal aid. This article summarizes recent complaints from public officials in southwest Louisiana concerning the relative balance of limited coastal restoration funds between southeastern and southwestern Louisiana.

These officials complain that in the 2009 Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority (CRPA)budget a total of $14 million in funds are budgeted for southeast Louisiana projects and only $1 million in funds are budgeted for projects in southwest Louisiana.

The chairman of CPRA, Garret Graves, seems prepared to respond. He has indicated in a recent CPRA meeting that the Jindal administration is considering a restructuring of the board to allow more balance. The type of restructuring that is under consideration is using land mass or population to determine representation.

Erich P Rapp.

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A team of scientists has identified chemical compounds that can be used as bait to entice nutria into traps. Once in the traps, the nutria can be transported to areas away from the coastal wetlands. Nutria are about ten pounds in size and feed on grasses in coastal wetlands. Nutria are originally from South America, but were introduced to the Louisiana coastal wetlands in the 1930's.

Professor Athula Attygalle, an expert in molecular chemistry and mass-spectrometry based at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, and a team of scientists from Cornell University and University of Iowa, have found a compound the nutria like which does not damage the environment.

Several volatile compounds, including terpenoids, fatty alcohols, fatty acids and some of their esters, were identified from solvent extracts prepared from anal scent glands of nutria according to the lead researcher.  The researchers believe that these compounds can serve as a powerful attractant to the nutria. While federal agencies have looked at various poisoning methods, none of those efforts has gone very far because of their harmful effects on other species.

An article published on March 10, 2008 concerning these new compounds can be found in the Environmental News Service in an article entitled: Chemical Found to Lure Nutria Out of Louisiana Wetlands.

Erich P. Rapp.

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The Baton Rouge Advocate published a letter on March 5, 2008 under the headline, Letter: Wetlands require urgent action. Kerry St. Pe, the program director for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, wrote in the Baton Rouge paper that all stakeholders must join together to move quickly to restore coastal Louisiana.

St. Pe concludes that the state cannot afford delays that might be caused by strategies that could result in drawn-out disagreement. He emphasizes the adoption of proven technology on a large scale. In particularly, he suggests using existing sediment delivery technology such as dredges, pumps and pipelines need to be employed immediately. The land built through the sediment delivery processes must then be supported with small to medium size river diversions. These diversion will sustain the new land.  

St. Pe expresses concern about the disagreements arising from large scale river diversions. He views large scale diversions as potentially contentious and questions whether such diversion have long term benefits.

In sum, St. Pe thinks Louisiana should focus on the strategies where consensus exists.

Erich P Rapp. 

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