Mid Barataria Sediment Diversion
The move was widely expected for a while, but the state made it official Thursday – the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project is cancelled.
The state reached an agreement with the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group to terminate the $3 billion coastal restoration project so that it can replace it with a smaller scale version.
“Our commitment to coastal restoration has not wavered,” said Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Gordon Dove. “We are now focused on advancing the Myrtle Grove project, which we believe will deliver similar benefits to rebuild and sustain our coast, in addition to numerous other Master Plan and Annual Plan projects.”
The state cited soaring costs, permitting concerns and litigation as the reasons for cancelling the project, which was designed to reconnect the Mississippi River to the Barataria Basin, with the intention of rebuilding marshes in Plaquemines Parish.
Charles Sutcliffe with the National Wildlife Federation is disappointed with the decision.
“A generation of experts have scrutinized this project from every angle, and a generation of people living along the coast have trusted that the state is making decisions about the future in a principled way,” says Sutcliffe. “And we found out that that’s no longer the case.”
Last November, Gov. Landry testified in opposition of the project before the Senate Transportation Committee.
He said the project was destroying certain aspects of Louisiana’s culture.
“It destroys the shrimping industry, which is already struggling,” Landry told the committee. “It destroys the oyster beds. And we say — the government says, ‘No worries, we are going to pay you not to shrimp. We are going to pay you not to oyster fish.’ Do you know what happens when we pay people not to engage in their trade? The trade goes away.”
Sutcliffe says what’s especially disappointing about the cancellation is all the money that has already been invested in the project up to this point.
“At least $618 million was invested in this project that’s now going to go towards nothing, and that by itself will be the largest coastal investment in a restoration project by the state of Louisiana.”
Landry testified last November that while a lot of the money for the project would come from the settlement from the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, continuing the project would cost the state money that it simply doesn’t have.
“Everything above $2.9 billion is on our dime. And this is one project in one area that will start, in my belief, to begin to soak up the resources that we need across the whole coast,” Landry said at the time.
Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of national and local conservation groups, is also not happy with the decision.
“Mid-Barataria is more than a project—it represents a generational investment, paid for with the penalties of an environmental disaster,” the group said in a statement. “These dollars were meant to restore the coast, not settle a cancellation of contracts behind closed doors. The project’s cancellation means the state is throwing away more than $618 million intended to be spent to protect the coast’s culture, residents, and businesses.”
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