Some officials question impact of diversions on coastal efforts

• By AMY WOLD
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 15, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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For years, scientists and coastal restoration specialists have said the water and sediment carried by the Mississippi River are key to addressing the problem of Louisiana’s eroding coastline.

Diversions of river water into nearby marsh mimic the land-building power of the Mississippi River as it was done before flood control levees kept the river from overflowing its banks.

These diversions are such a part of coastal restoration planning that they are included in the state’s restoration master plan and in the federal Water Resources Development Act authorizations from Congress last year.

However, recent discussions about the impact of these diversions on navigation has raised some concerns in the state about the future of the restoration effort.

During a federal Coastal Wetlands, Planning, Protection and Restoration Act task force meeting in New Orleans Nov. 5, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representatives stated the West Bay Sediment Diversion project south of Venice has caused shoaling to occur at a navigation anchorage near Pilottown.

The diversion project was built in 2003 and is essentially a channel cut into the natural levee that captures part of the Mississippi River’s water and sediment and puts it into adjacent shallow water areas to create land.

As part of the task force’s cost share agreement for the project, dredging of additional sediment that might accumulate at the nearby anchorage is the responsibility of the task force, said Tom Podany, chief of the protection restoration office with the corps.

However, the cost of keeping that area dredged over the next couple of decades could be more than $100 million, Podany said.

The nearby anchorage area has been dredged at least twice since the diversion was opened, but shoaling has driven the cost of dredging beyond the original budget, said Podany.

That led the task force to consider three options to address the problem at their recent meeting, said Garret Graves, director of the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities and the state’s representative on the task force.

The task force considered options of either finding money for ongoing dredging, using $9 million to close down the project or setting aside funding for two additional dredging operations during the next three years while setting aside money to close the structure if needed, Graves said.

The task force went with the third option, which was disappointing to the state, Graves said.

“This is a head in the sand decision,” Graves said. “We feel this ‘solution’ totally lacks innovation.”