Coastal
Erosion Crisis Committee
League
of Women Voters of Louisiana
Urges
Endorsement of Federal Legislation
To
Address the Critical Loss of Louisiana’s Wetlands
THE PROBLEM
Current major federal legislation addresses
wetlands and estuarine
initiatives in such diverse geographies as the Everglades, Chesapeake
Bay and the Pacific
Northwest. The largest area of coastal
wetlands with the greatest loss in the United States is not being
addressed with
comprehensive federal legislation.
·
Louisiana is
home to 3.4 million
acres of coastal wetlands, 28% of all wetlands that still exist within
the 48 contiguous
states. In these states, over 80% of all
coastal wetlands loss is occurring in south Louisiana.
·
Since 1932,
Louisiana has lost
1.2 million acres of wetlands, or about 1,900 square miles.
That is larger than the state of Rhode Island, or
equivalent to the state of
Delaware, plus Washington D.C.–Baltimore, MD. An
area the size of a football field is lost every half hour.
That amounts to 24 square miles per year.
·
·
By the year
2050, Louisiana could
lose another 435,000 acres.
The coastal wetlands and
barrier islands
are the natural line of defense against devastating hurricanes and
storm surges. Less than 10% of the 18,000
square miles
comprising the south Louisiana coastal zone is higher than three feet
above sea level.
·
70% of Louisiana’s citizens
live in
this zone even though dry land is scarce. Fewer
than 4,000 residents live on the actual shoreline since it is
predominantly marsh, not dry
land ending in beaches.
·
·
Estimates indicate that every
2.7 miles of
wetlands can absorb almost one foot of storm surge flooding, creating a
natural buffer of
protection for coastal communities.
·
Natural forces that normally
replenish
coastal wetlands have been prevented from operating.
The result has been a constant erosion of the coastal
zone.
·
·
The continued loss of this
natural buffer
has led to massive land and marsh loss during tropical storms and minor
hurricanes. A Category 3 or larger
hurricane could
result in a national catastrophe.
·
15 to 20% of the entire
seafood catch of
the U.S. ( by weight) comes from the Gulf of Mexico.
95% of that catch use Louisiana’s wetlands as a nursery
to mature.
·
·
Over 25% of the nation’s
domestic
onshore oil and gas supply is produced here. East
coast states rely on this supply of natural gas. 80%
of all domestic outer continental shelf oil and gas is produced off our
coast. Henry Hub, the natural gas
distribution system
that monitors the price of gas for commodities markets, is located in
south Louisiana.
·
·
South Louisiana is home to a
web of
transportation, refinery and petrochemical infrastructure that supply
the nation’s
needs. This web imposes significant wear and tear on our water, air and fragile
land..
·
·
Over 21% of the nation’s
intracoastal, waterborne commerce travels these wetlands via the Gulf
Intracoastal Water
Way, the Mississippi River and the Calcasieu Ship Channel.
·
·
The Mississippi River drains
two-thirds of
the contiguous 48 states. Each year, an
oxygen-depleted area called the Dead Zone forms
in the Gulf of Mexico at the river’s mouth. It
is caused by excessive amounts of fertilizer runoff from agricultural
states in the
Midwest, as the now leveed river dumps its sediment load off the
continental shelf into
the Gulf.
·
·
The migratory routes of
waterfowl and
songbirds pass through Louisiana on their way between North and South
America.
South Louisiana is home to a blend of cultures –
Creole,
Acadian French [Cajun], Native American and African-American heavily
spiced with French,
Spanish, Anglo, Caribbean, Irish, Jewish, Isleno and now, Vietnamese
flavors. The USA has long celebrated the
particular
diversity and the creativity of Louisiana. Entire
genres of music and cuisine have evolved from Louisiana.
·
New Orleans is over fourteen
feet below
sea level , in some places,. A major
hurricane and storm surge could kill over 100,000 residents who do not
own a car for
evacuation. This historic city’s
renowned architecture would be destroyed.
·
·
The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers (USACE)
estimates that it would take more than 6 months to remove the water
from the city if a
storm surge flooded it. It is estimated that water depth in the French
Quarter could be 20
feet.
·
·
In the 20 parishes of south
Louisiana,
where the bulk of the state’s population lives, 2,000,000 residents
could suffer
extreme damage to their homes.
·
·
Refugees from large storms and
hurricanes
will flood neighboring Mississippi and Texas.
·
·
Communities are being lost and
populations
are moving northwards as the coastline recedes.
·
·
Encroaching saltwater is
already
contaminating sole source drinking water from fresh water bayous.
Part of the reason for this problem is natural,
subsidence, the
sinking of land due to compression of the soft sediments over time. However, the main reasons for this problem are
man-made. Federal policies and projects of
the federal government have caused much of the loss.
Therefore, the federal government should share
responsibility for protecting
and restoring Louisiana’s wetlands.
·
The USACE leveed the
Mississippi River in
the 1940s to prevent a recurrence of the massive flooding of 1927.
·
·
The USACE grants permits that
relate to
all inland navigation channels.
·
·
Tens of thousands of miles of
pipelines
for oil and gas production, permitted by the State of Louisiana’s
Department of
Natural Resources [DNR] in concert with the USACE, cut through the
wetlands, facilitating
salt water intrusion. Mini-levees block
the
ebb and flow of water and silt essential to maintain a healthy wetland.
The estimated cost to remedy the crisis of the
disappearing
wetlands over a 30-year period is $14 billion dollars.
If nothing is done, costs to the nation are estimated at
a staggering $150
billion in infrastructure alone. Losses
include:
·
Loss of life and residential
property.
·
·
Physical relocation of entire
towns.
·
·
Lost production in energy,
petro-chemical,
transportation, agriculture and seafood industries.
·
·
Damage to 4 of the nation’s 10
largest ports, affecting Midwest shipping with foreign markets.
·
Two
of the
nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves will be jeopardized.
SOLUTIONS
TO THE PROBLEM
The
job now is to identify the next steps the federal government must take
in league with the
State of Louisiana in what promises to be the largest engineering
project in recorded
history.
Two
elements are necessary for the sustainable balance of Louisiana‘s
coastal wetlands: protecting of existing
wetlands and barrier
islands, and restoring the coastal marshes as much as possible. The term “coastal restoration” does not
mean a process of recreating all of the wetland acreage that existed in
the past. It describes an attempt to
restore a sustainable
balance to the landscape using a combination of natural forces and
human engineering.
Organized efforts to address
the coastal
loss began in 1989. Act
6, a Louisiana state constitutional measure,
established a trust fund to match federal initiatives.
At the federal level, the Coastal Wetlands Planning,
Protection and
Restoration Act of 1990 (CWPPRA, aka the Breaux Act) has enabled the
USACE, in conjunction
with four other federal agencies and the Louisiana Department of
Natural Resources, to
design and build select small restoration projects.
The Breaux Act
·
64 restoration projects have
been
completed or are under way under the Breaux Act at a cost of
approximately $40 million per
year. These
projects must be monitored for at least 20 years to
measure success.
·
·
The Breaux Act projects could
protect and
rehabilitate approximately 10% of lost wetlands.
·
·
The Breaux Act projects can
deliver
localized restoration benefits.
·
·
The Breaux Act has served as a
proving
ground for technically sound construction ideas, in addition to
providing successful
restoration projects.
·
Thanks to the Breaux Act, we
now know what
we need to do to rebuild sustainable wetlands.
Coast
2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal
Louisiana. The Coast 2050 initiative
was undertaken in 1997
by a group of involved state and federal agencies to develop a
strategic plan so the
Louisiana coast can survive.
·
All 20
coastal parishes passed
resolutions of support.
·
·
To summarize: bold plans to utilize diversion of Mississippi
River water and other riverine systems to carry sediments and nutrients
to rebuild marshes
are proposed.
·
·
Implementation
of this strategy
is estimated to cost as much as $14 billion over the next 30 years.
·
·
Studies have
estimated that
between $30 and $100 billion in infrastructure is at risk.
Louisiana
Coastal Area Comprehensive Coastwide Ecosystem Restoration Study
(LCA). In 1999, a federal multi-agency
team led by the
USACE began drafting a feasibility study and draft programmatic
environmental impact
statement.
·
LCA identified 7 coastwide
alternatives to
provide a sustainable coastal ecosystem.
·
·
LCA was based on the
feasibility studies
of Coast 2050.
·
·
LCA was submitted to the
Council on
Environmental Quality and the Office of Management & Budget in
October 2003.
·
·
The goal was to include
Louisiana coastal
restoration in the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2004.
·
·
In February 2004, the White
House Budget
Committee informed the agencies that they would not object to a $1-2
billion, 10-year plan
for inclusion in WRDA 2004.
LCA
Near-Term Ecosystem Restoration Plan. During
the spring of 2004, the USACE developed a list of restoration projects
that could be
undertaken in 10 years. They held five
public
meetings across south Louisiana to prioritize projects and issues.
·
We will meet the goal of
submitting the
mini-restoration plan by fall for consideration by Congress in WRDA
2004.
·
·
Citizens and all levels of
government view
the LCA Near-Term Initiative as only a starting point for meaningful
restoration. Essentially, protective
measures, rather than
restoration will probably be the result.
·
·
There is consensus that
stabilizing this
dynamic coast will be effective only if the measures are permanent.
The Energy Bill.
The original Energy Bill before Congress in 2003
included some funding for Louisiana Coastal Restoration.
The LWVUS rightly opposes this bill based on sound
environmental and
economic positions. Some of the Bill’s
outcomes, such as global warming, would actually worsen the coastal
situation. It is all the more apparent
that legislation to
address coastal wetlands should not be connected to other major issue
legislation.
Local Measures and Issues
·
The state and parishes
currently sponsor
over 300 projects. Examples include
planting, reusing dredged materials and installing recycled Christmas
tree ‘fence
work’ which traps sediment and lessens wave-action.
·
·
Three state constitutional
amendments
passed with over 60% of the vote in 2003. Two
enhance the state’s ability to accumulate matching funds, and the third
amendment
limits the state’s liability for past and future damages to private
property.
·
Legal and logistical problems
will have to
be overcome at the state level. These
include
property use rights, notifying property owners and reimbursing owners
for the loss of
certain income producing rights, such as oyster bed leases.
WHAT
CAN THE LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS DO?
The League can urge Congress
to pass
federal initiative legislation to address this massive coastal loss. This is based on our long-standing positions
on
managing resources with special consideration for the protection of
areas of critical
environmental concern, as well as our emphasis on protecting wetlands. This region has borne the burden of supplying
energy and other economic benefits to the nation, benefiting all
citizens. Federal decisions, based
primarily on flood
control and navigation needs and energy production, have interfered
with natural processes
that would have sustained this working coast. Congress
must launch a fundamental federal initiative, or the entire nation will
suffer the loss.
