NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Proponents of a nearly $3 billion project to restore part of southeast Louisiana’s rapidly disappearing coastline released studies Tuesday that show the economic benefits of construction but face opposition and lawsuits from communities concerned the environment and livelihoods will be severely affected.
The Mid Barataria Sediment Diversion Project broke ground last August, but construction was halted due to a legal dispute and has only partially resumed since June.
The project is expected to spend about $1.6 billion in the state over its five-year construction period, according to a new study funded by the environmental group Restore the Mississippi Delta. The construction phase is expected to create an average of 3,095 jobs across five Louisiana parishes, mostly in construction jobs with wages significantly higher than the local average, according to the study.
“This project will provide more wetlands than any individual restoration project in the world and will generate enormous amounts of new revenue, jobs and profits for coastal Louisiana,” Simone Maloz of the Campaign to Restore the Mississippi Delta said at a press conference Tuesday announcing the study’s findings. “This is exactly the scale of project we need to address the very serious challenges we face.”
The study estimates that construction will generate a total of $308.2 million in wage income, $65.4 million in tax revenue and an average of 540 jobs over five years in Plaquemines Parish, where the project will be built.
But Mitch Jurisic, a third-generation oyster fisherman and parish council president, rejected the idea that the project would help rather than hurt the community’s economy in the long run, calling the study “political propaganda.”
His oyster company is one of several plaintiffs, including environmental groups, suing to stop the project on the grounds that it will change water quality, endanger birds and marine life and kill thousands of bottlenose dolphins in the Barataria River basin.
The project, which underwent years of evaluation before being approved, would divert freshwater from the Mississippi River and deliver sediment to the basin’s brackish and saltwater marshes.
The goal is to restore land in a state where environmental groups estimate that rising sea levels caused by climate change are causing the Gulf of Mexico to eat away at an area the size of a football field every 100 minutes.
Barataria and the neighboring Breton Basin have lost a combined estimated 700 square miles of land. Levee construction on the Mississippi River is believed to be one of the main factors that has inhibited the natural resilience of sediments. The diversion project is expected to add 20 to 40 square miles of new land over the next 50 years.
Jurisch, who also serves as chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, said he is concerned the project will cause irreparable damage to the oyster, fishing and tourism industries. His county accounts for 70 percent of the commercial harvest of oysters, crabs, fish and shrimp. Statewide, the oyster industry alone generates about $317 million in annual revenue and provides about 4,000 direct jobs, according to the Oyster Task Force.
“This project will destroy our way of life,” Jurisic said. “What will be left? Just the skeleton of a local community that cannot support local businesses because it cannot stand on its own.”
The study did not analyze the economic benefits of the project once it is up and running, but it said the project has set aside a total of $378 million to mitigate the impacts on the community, including building a breakwater, raising piers and homes, and buying out residents who want to relocate. About $54 million of that budget is for building new oyster farms and expanding old ones, improving fishing gear, and marketing to the seafood industry.
While opponents of the plan have called for less invasive responses to land loss in the basin, such as rebuilding barrier islands, Maroz argues the plan should be seen as part of a broader, necessary effort to address the growing scope of land loss in the state.
The Louisiana Department of Coastal Protection and Restoration and Plaquemines Parish released a joint statement in June saying they were “working toward a mutually acceptable path forward for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Plan.”
