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

The United States Department of Agriculture runs the Louisiana Plant Materials Center in Galliano, Louisiana next to the airport. The Plant Materials Center plays an important role in coastal protection projects because they are assigned the task of finding suitable plants to use in areas where marshland is being rebuild or protected. The Center is very important to those working on coastal wetland projects, but largely unknown to the public. It is on 90 acres with greenhouses and fields to simulate marsh. The Center can test plants for many years before using them in coastal protection projects.

Dr. Richard Neill, the Center's manager and Garrett Thomassie, the assistant manager, are evaluating the plants that nature has given us and trying to determine which ones create the greatest soil stabilization in various environments. Some of the projects that they have worked on include projects for the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, Port Fourchon, re-vegetation of City Park in New Orleans, and re-vegetation of the Naval Air Station at Belle Chase.

If you are interested in learning more about the Louisiana Plant Materials Program, you can arrange a tour by calling (985) 475-5280. Also see, the Saturday June 21, 2008 article at WWL-TV entitled, Plant Center grows plants that halt coastal erosion.

Erich P Rapp.

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Concrete from the Twin Spans bridges will be dismantled in 2009 and used for a coastal protection project according to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal speaking on Tuesday June 17, 2008. Jindal stated,

“Using material from the twin span bridges to build reefs like these is a first in Louisiana. In the past, limestone has been shipped in from out of state, but this historic project uses material already on hand and reduces the cost of building this valuable habitat.”

The Coastal Conservation Association of Louisiana, in partnership with Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development and NOAA Office of Coast Survey are planning to construct two inshore artificial reefs in Lake Pontchartrain. The reefs will be constructed from the concrete bridge rubble. They will provide a habitat for marine life on an area of about one to two acres.

For more information on this project, see the WWL article dated June 10, 2009 entitled, Concrete from Twin Spans to Help with Coastal Restoration.

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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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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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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Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, has asked the Army Corps of Engineers to change its organizational structure. Jindal wants the New Orleans District Office of the Corps to be come a Division Office reporting directly to the Corps headquarters in Washington.

At present, the New Orleans District Office of the Corps reports to the Division office in Vicksburg, Mississippi. This change would reduce the time required for the Corps to make decisions related to New Orleans and Louisiana coastal protection and restoration.

Garrett Graves, Governor Jindal's Director of the Office of Coastal Activities, made the formal request to the Mississippi River Commission in Vicksburg. Graves stated that the change was crucial now because the Corps was preparing to undertake $15 billion in repair and rebuilding of the region's hurricane protection flood system.

For more information on this request, se the New Orleans Times Picayune articled from Saturday April 12, 2008 entitled: Jindal seeks change in Corps of Engineers organization.

Erich P Rapp.

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On February 29, 2008, the Baton Rouge Advocate newspaper published a letter from Maura Wood, a senior program manager with the National Wildlife Federation, under the headline, Letter: Preventing disasters key issue. Woods indicates that the National Audubon Society and the Environmental Defense Fund also support the efforts of the National Wildlife Federation in this cause.

In this regard, Woods urges representatives of Louisiana in Washington, D.C. to be leaders in restoring coastal wetlands as a barrier protecting the people living in South Louisiana from hurricanes.  Ms. Woods calls for a sense of urgency in the use of the land building power of the Mississippi River to restore coastal wetlands in Louisiana.

It is good to see these national environmental organizations taking a special interest in this important issue.

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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The Corps of Engineers claims it learned of Louisiana coastal land loss in the early 1970's.  The Corps' November 2004 Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study suggests discovery "in part" from the publication of a 1972 study. No earlier date is mentioned. Discovery in 1972 is not true "in part" or otherwise.

The Corps knew long before the1970's that Louisiana was losing coastal wetlands and that the cause was their management of the Mississippi River. They even knew the wetlands below New Orleans were being lost more quickly than wetlands to the west. As described in my prior blog entry, they also knew the consequences of the land loss on hurricane storm surges. 

Culpability is a function of knowledge. If the Corps knew when it took action that the action would cause damage, they have greater responsibility than if they did not know. Suggesting discovery in 1972 would tend to reduce responsibility for the consequences of  what the Corps did before.

On December 29, 1961, the Corps published: Interim Survey Report Mississippi River Delta At and Below New Orleans. The report was mentioned in my last blog entry about hurricane storm surge. In appendix B of this report on page B-2, it states:

 "The shorelines of the ponds, lakes, and bays within the marshland and the seaward edges of the marshland are being eroded by wave action. At present very little (and in the greater part of the area none) of the sediments carried down by the Mississippi River reach the marshlands. The bulk of the sediments is carried into the gulf and deposited along the outer continental shelf in the vicinity of the mouth of the river. Although wave action is contributing to the destruction of the marshlands, the irregular jagged shorelines in the area show that subsidence has been the dominant factor. Both subsidence and wave attack will continue in the future and unless sediment laden water is introduced into the area to replace material being lost, and to compensate for subsidence, the inland bodies of water will continue to enlarge and the seaward facing edges of the marshland will continue to retreat. This will happen much faster on the east side of the Mississippi River where the marshlands are more exposed to prevailing winds, and there is less to destroy." (emphasis added).

This 1961 report was not an original statement, but it was an eloquent one. More to come.

Erich P Rapp.

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