The critical landscape is being converted to open water at the rate of 30 to 35 square miles per year.

Louisiana’s coastal landscape is extraordinarily valuable to the nation from a number of different perspectives, paramount being the protection it provides to the total infrastructure of the region. The same landscape that supports wildlife, endangered species, and a multibillion dollar seafood industry also protects the region’s homes, roads, and businesses. It is also important to recognize the tremendous energy resources that are produced in, or supported by coastal Louisiana. Sadly, this same landscape is being converted to open water at the rate of 30 to 35 square miles each year. The primary federal agency responsible for activities to protect and restore this important area is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District.

Major support facilities for the region’s oil and gas industry, which will soon account for about 25 percent of the nation’s domestic oil and gas production, are located in coastal Louisiana. Regardless of where the exploration material, personnel and supplies originate, at some point these resources must be transferred from land-based transportation systems to either air or marine systems. This site of intermodal transfer is vital to maintaining reliable, uninterrupted production of oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico. One of the primary port facilities that service exploration and production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico is Louisiana’s Port Fouchon. What is of particular importance is that this facility and the highway system that connects it to the interstate highway system are protected by only the surrounding landscape, which happens to be coastal marshes. Without this critical landscape, that functions as a “marsh barrier,” the highway system would be threatened by winter storms, high tides, tropical storms, and hurricanes. If the highway were to be damaged or closed for any reason, the nation’s flow of natural gas and crude oil would be immediately affected. Therefore, if these coastal marshes are lost, citizens throughout the country would be vulnerable to oil and gas shortages.

Another critically important component of the protective function provided by Louisiana’s coastal landscape is that 2 million people live behind elaborate levee systems. The levees protect Louisiana residents and businesses from annual spring floods of the Mississippi River and hurricane-induced storm surges originating in the Gulf of Mexico. These levee systems, which are designed and maintained by the USACE, are reliant upon the existence of miles of coastal wetlands in front of them to help protect them from wave damage. If that “marsh barrier” were removed, the existing levees would have to be enlarged significantly and probably armored in order to provide the same level of protection for coastal residents.

Most people recognize the tremendous commercial and recreational seafood industry that exists in coastal Louisiana. This multi-billion dollar industry is fundamentally dependent upon one thing – appropriate habitat for the many estuarine species that are part of the web of life for a healthy ecosystem. Put quite simply – No marsh, no fish. The Louisiana coastal landscape provides the nursery habitat necessary for a majority of the estuarine-dependent species in the Gulf of Mexico. Without that landscape, Gulf fisheries would be adversely affected. Waterfowl, neotropical migrants, alligators, and other wildlife would also be significantly affected by the loss of Louisiana’s landscape.

This critical landscape is being converted to open water at the rate of 30 to 35 square miles per year. This conversion is not the result of continued destruction, but rather a combination of natural processes and lingering impacts of past activities. Most people would agree that the root cause of the land loss problem is the fact that through a federal program aimed at flood protection, levees were constructed to confine flows and to direct floodwaters from the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, directing these sediment-laden floodwaters to the Gulf prevents them from flowing into and nourishing the coastal landscape. These flood protection features, located in the southern most part of the third largest drainage basin in the world, were implemented by the USACE to protect Louisiana from flooding by drainage of 41 percent of the United States.

The USACE, New Orleans District is currently working with other federal resource agencies and the State of Louisiana to select, design, and build projects that function to preserve and protect Louisiana’s coastal landscape. The two special programs aimed at addressing these needs include the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act and Coast 2050. The team of Waldemar S. Nelson and Company/Battelle has been hired to provide multidisciplinary services to the New Orleans District. It is anticipated that most of the work assignments that result from the contract over the next three years will be in support of either or both of these programs. Some of the types of projects currently being implemented include freshwater diversions from the Mississippi River, direct marsh creation projects utilizing material dredged for navigation purposes, barrier island restoration, and shoreline erosion protection.

For more information about Battelle’s work in the Gulf of Mexico region, please contact Steve Mathies at (504) 581-3888 or via e-mail at mathiess@battelle.org.