Published by Louisiana Illuminator, WWNO

Louisiana state leaders are mum about whether a nearly $3 billion project that’s been touted as a linchpin in the state’s coastal restoration efforts will move forward as pressure mounts from the federal government to get the work done.

Gov. Jeff Landry’s office and officials with the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority did not respond to multiple emails and calls related to the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project. The state is now in danger of losing billions in funding if leaders don’t clearly commit to seeing the project through.

The massive project is in limbo as it faces two separate legal challenges that have pitted local leaders and fishermen against scientists and environmental advocates. Proponents of the project stress the need to rehab Louisiana’s heavily damaged and steadily eroding coastline, which is disappearing at a rate of approximately a football field every 100 minutes — a process that’s worsened as climate change accelerates sea level rise and intensifies extreme weather events including hurricanes.

Saving the coastline resonates with local voters. This week, roughly two-thirds of Louisiana voters approved a constitutional amendment to dedicate any revenues from offshore wind projects to future coastal projects.

The restoration funding for the Barataria Basin — approximately 1.5 million acres of wetlands southwest of New Orleans — is part of the more than $8 billion settlement the state was awarded after BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The project touches nine parishes and is scattered throughout the Louisiana Gulf Coast.

The project would essentially reconnect the sediment-carrying Mississippi River to the basin to maintain and restore land that provides protection from flooding and storm surge. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is among the trustees overseeing use of the settlement money.

“NOAA is committed to the restoration of Louisiana's coast and the Gulf of Mexico to address the injuries caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” agency spokesman James Miller said in an email. “Any delay in construction and operation of the project increases the vulnerability of Louisiana’s communities and natural resources.”

NOAA, along with the U.S. Department of Interior, Department of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Agency, make up the trustee body overseeing the allocation of the Deepwater Horizon settlement. In a letter to Glenn Ledet, executive director of Louisiana’s coastal agency, the federal trustee body has demanded that the state provide a “clear statement” indicating CPRA “remains committed” to carrying out the diversion project or face having to pay back the $2.26 billion trustees awarded for the project.

Local scientists and environmental advocates have urged state leaders to remain focused on seeing the project come to fruition if they want to save the coastline.

“In coastal Louisiana, we have done such a good job spending our dollars wisely, spending them on science-based projects,” said Simone Maloz, campaign director for Restore the Mississippi River Delta. “It may seem very, very big, but this is the exact size and scale of a solution that we need to match the problems that coastal Louisiana is facing today.”

Costs rise as project stalls

The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project has been called the largest coastal restoration project in the state’s history. It broke ground in August 2023, but three months into construction it was halted when Plaquemines Parish sued, alleging the project would increase flooding and flood insurance rates for local residents.

The nearly $3 billion project is designed to reintroduce freshwater and sediment from the Mississippi River into the Mid-Barataria Basin along the Louisiana coast. The aim is to rebuild up to 30,000 acres of coastal wetlands over the next 50 years. It also would restore and preserve some of the coastal wetlands lost through years of sea level rise and saltwater intrusion — products of levee construction and climate-fueled hurricanes and flooding.

The problem of coastal land loss is long-standing. Earlier estimates have indicated that an average of nearly 5,700 acres of wetlands were lost each year between 1974 and 1990.

In a separate lawsuit, commercial fisher groups and environmental conservationists accused the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service of violating federal environmental laws in issuing permits for the project.

The suit asserts that the Corps did not properly assess the negative impacts the project would have on the sediment and water quality in the basin and that the federal agencies downplayed the impacts it would have on endangered aquatic species, including sea turtles and bottle-nosed dolphins.

Both lawsuits are pending.

Landry in August said he was optimistic a compromise could be reached in the parish’s lawsuit against the state while also voicing concerns over rising costs caused by delays while the lawsuits are pending.

Any amendments or changes to the current plan would require another round of assessments that would only further delay the project.

In her acknowledgement of the concerns raised in both lawsuits, Maloz pointed out that nearly $380 million in mitigation measures were added to address concerns expressed by the litigants.

“We do understand that there would be impacts, but we also know that there are other species that do stand to benefit,” she said. “We don't have that much time. We can't afford any more potentially very costly delays on the project.”

Scientists push for project completion

A group of more than 30 scientists around Louisiana recently co-authored a letter in support of CPRA’s Coastal Master Plan in the wake of news about the threat from the federal government.

The overall plan is essentially an unfunded wishlist of 77 projects costing roughly $50 billion over the next 50 years. In the letter, the scientists called the plan a “wonder” that “efficiently and strategically” allocated about $1 billion a year toward saving the Louisiana coast.

Alex Kolker, a New Orleans-based coastal scientist who signed the letter, said the six years of scientific research that went into drafting the plan for the Mid-Barataria project should not be ignored.

“There are a lot of sort of moving parts around the coast these days, and I think that calls for some reminder of the importance of science in any decision-making process,” Kolker said.

He added that halting or delaying the project any further would mean “continued land loss in an area that has already experienced a lot of land loss. It would bring the (Gulf of Mexico) closer to New Orleans.”

Floodlight is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powerful interests stalling climate action.