A "Comprehensive" Coastal Plan

This past Wednesday evening, I jumped on the Elysian Fields bus in New Orleans and headed to the University of New Orleans to attend one of the four public hearings regarding the draft Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast. The idea of this meeting was to give the public an opportunity to hear a brief presentation on the draft plan, and comment on it. The different state and federal agencies and politicians showed up in droves, but there only seemed to be twenty or so other members of the public at this meeting. The few fishermen, landowners, and other citizens that were there voiced their concerns with the plan—many focusing on the urgency of repairing our barrier islands, as our “first line of defense.”

As Aaron posted earlier, there are questions that must be addressed in order to be truly Comprehensive. The beginning of the plan outlines four objectives for the plan: 1) Reduce risk to economic assets, 2) Restore sustainability to the coastal ecosystem, 3) Maintain a diverse array of habitats for fish and wildlife, and 4) Sustain Louisiana’s unique heritage and culture. Admirable goals, but after looking at this new draft, there is still an emphasis on structural solutions, i.e. levees and floodgates. While I recognize that we live in an engineered environment here in Southeast Louisiana, we must focus on the most natural of solutions to saving our coast and communities. One of these structural “solutions” continues to be “leaky levees.” While this plan does recognize some of the scientific uncertainties regarding these levees, there are still huge lines in their maps that delineate levees slicing through huge areas of wetlands. It is folly to assume that if these levees are “leaky,” they will maintain the natural hydrology of the wetlands behind them. Before Louisiana citizens put their faith in these levees, there must be an independent review of the science behind them. Better yet, let's not build these levees through our wetlands and leave the wetlands in front of these levees, as these wetlands are yet another one of our "multiple lines of defense."

When I got up to the microphone for my five minutes of comments, I used them to talk about leaky levees and the “Donaldson to the Gulf” project.” This is a stretch of proposed levees that have been talked about by the Corps for a long time; in fact I just attended a meeting about this project a few weeks ago at the New Orleans Corps office. At that meeting, the Corps presented various alignments of these levees, however in the comprehensive plan meeting this past Wednesday, they mapped out only one of these alignments, calling it a “representative alignment to increase protection.” This alignment also happened to be the most destructive of all of the alignments, walling off thousands of acres of wetlands, and isolating them from any existing contact with the Gulf’s hydrology. The preparers of the comprehensive plan are doing Louisiana a great disservice by not showing the public that there are less ecologically destructive ways to give Southern Louisiana the storm protection that it wants.

It is not too late for the public to send in comments! To to review the draft plan and send in comments, visit this site. Comments are due April 2, 2007.

Matt Rota is the GRN's Water Resources Program Director