Bayou Bienvenue field trip

As the East Coast is learning today, hurricanes are not for sissies. And a good levee system is not a luxury. When that wind comes pounding at your own door, you see the situation quite differently.

Anyhow, Sandy is banging on other folks' doors tonight, although it is a bit chilly here.

Saturday morning, I met a bunch of other people at the Greater Little Zion Baptist Church for a field trip with the Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development and the National Wildlife Federation, which has a local chapter. Happy Johnson and Amanda Moore from NWF led us on a tour of the Lower 9th Ward levee and Bayou Bienvenue.

One of Amanda's primary responsibilities is educating people about wetland loss and leading the MRGO Must Go coalition. "Mr. Go" (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet), as it is known here, is an Army Corp of Engineers' $88 million boondoggle that destroyed thousands of acres of wetlands and storm protection around Southeast Louisiana.

Its intent, back in the 1950s, was to create a shorter route to New Orleans than the Mississippi, which winds about 100 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. MRGO was completed in 1968.

As it has turned out, it costs $20,000 per ship to pass through Mr. Go and also compromises the surrounding communities during storms. Flooding has become a much bigger problem. The influx of salt water killed the cypress forest that protected the region.

Now the federal government has decided to "de-authorize" Mr. Go. But how do you fill in a ditch that size? Well, you can't. The coalition wants BP's fines through the Restore Act to fix much of the damage, since the channel was dug primarily to help the oil industry.

Restoring the ecosystem would take decades. They'd have to replant cypress trees by creating new land and literally planting seeds! Twenty-five acres are currently being cultivated as a trial.

The land estimated to be impacted is 618,000 acres of marshland.

Here are the facts thanks to WNF, Environmental Defense Fund, Audubon Society and the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation:

• Every hour, Louisiana loses a football field of wetlands
• These wetlands act as a "horizontal levee" between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. As wetlands disappear, so do the natural defenses they provide, like storm surge protection, wind buffering and water filtration.
• This drastic loss of wetlands leaves coastal communities increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes, floods and other disasters, like the 2010 BP oil spill
• Coastal restoration projects will create jobs and rebuild our wetlands, safeguarding our cities and supporting our seafood industry.

Remove CO2, reduce global warming and rebuild wetlands

Louisiana scientists working on plan to save coastline, fight global warming

Published: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 5:00 PM

 By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

A team of Louisiana scientists is laying the groundwork for creating a new carbon storage industry that could both reduce the effects of global warming and rebuild wetlands along the state’s coastline. Sarah Mack, founder of New Orleans-based Tierra Resources, and Louisiana State University wetlands scientists John W. Day and Robert Lane have come up with a method for measuring the molecules of carbon removed from the atmosphere by the soils and plants that are created with coastal restoration projects.

Steven ForsterSarah Mack

Removing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is a key strategy for mitigating global warming, and thus reducing the effects of climate change. Scientists say rising levels of human-made carbon dioxide help the atmosphere hold in heat, leading to warmer worldwide temperatures. Those temperatures, scientists say, will result in a variety of harmful effects, from rising sea levels to longer periods of drought and more intense storms.

Assuring that restoration projects can store carbon for years could turn the projects into major investment targets for carbon-producing industries nationwide, including electric power generating companies and petrochemical plants that are facing potential federal and state rules aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

During a Thursday news conference, Mack compared carbon reduction to losing weight.

“You either eat less or you exercise,” she said.

But scientists don’t have it easy, she said. Restoration projects don’t create big chunks of coal that are easy to count. Instead, they have to measure the amount of carbon absorbed as plants grow, and then how much remains in wetland soils after the plants die and decompose.

The process must also take into account whether the effects of global warming, including sea level rise, might in the future upset the process, with the wetlands sinking below the water and freeing the carbon to again enter the atmosphere.

The American Carbon Registry, created to certify carbon credits, is now reviewing the Tierra Resources method to assure it meets such standards.

Industries such as New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. have been investing in carbon-reduction projects for almost a decade, “banking” the credits in anticipation of federal regulations aimed at reducing industrial carbon emissions to 1990 levels.

View full sizeEllis Lucia, The Times-Picayune archiveBarry Blumenthal, left, of Mandeville uses a dibble and Mary Glackmeyer of New Orleans plants marsh grass in Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in May 2010.

Entergy, which operates electric utilities in Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi and owns electrical plants in several other states, is paying for development of the Tierra Resources wetlands carbon offset methodology, in part because of the threat to the company’s future by climate change, a company official said. A 2010 study co-sponsored by Entergy and America’s Energy Coast found that the effects of climate change could result in an annual economic loss to the Gulf coast of $350 billion.

“Our service territory is in the unique position of being at risk of the effects of climate change, including the loss of parts of our service territory, our customers and our assets,” said Entergy executive Steve Tullos.

Development of privately financed carbon sequestration projects also is being promoted by the state as part of its $50 billion, 50-year coastal restoration and protection master plan.

The Environmental Protection Agency agreed in 2010 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and petroleum refineries, which together make up about 40 percent of the nation’s emissions. It’s unclear when those regulations will be completed or enforced, but the voluntary market continues to expand.

And California, which would rank on its own as the 12th-largest producer of greenhouse gases in the world, is about to launch its own carbon reduction program by the end of next year that’s aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, or about 25 percent below today’s levels.

Assuring that the carbon credits are valid has remained a concern, though, both for the industries paying for projects to establish the carbon reductions, and for the voluntary associations and governments enforcing the reductions.

The Chicago Climate Exchange, established in 2003 to create a financial market for carbon trading, updated its rules last year to require the carbon offset credits be certified under approved science-based protocols.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

© 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Louisiana coastal restoration 50-year blueprint released

 By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

Declaring Louisiana’s loss of coastal wetlands “nothing short of a national emergency,” state officials today released a $50 billion, 50-year strategy for rebuilding land and increasing protection from storm surge for coastal communities that they say can be paid for with money the state is reasonably sure it will receive.

Master plan to protect and restore Louisiana's coast (click to enlarge)

The strategy is outlined in the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s draft five-year master plan update, which for the first time contains maps showing the location and scope of proposed projects and maps showing what the state’s coastline will look like in 2061 if they’re built. Lists of the projects also show their cost.

The master plan was made available on the Web Thursday  at noon at www.coastalmasterplan.la.gov.

Also included is a map showing the wetlands loss that will occur by 2061 if the master plan isn’t implemented and the extent of flooding from storm surges that will accompany a 100-year hurricane in 2061 if the projects aren’t built.

The document makes clear that some smaller coastal communities, and some segments of rapidly eroding coastal wetlands, will be losers in the expensive race to restoration.

The state has lost 1,883 square miles of land during the past 80 years, an area three-quarters the size of Delaware, and authority Chairman Garret Graves said it is impossible to return the state’s coastline to its 1930s condition. Even having a coastline in 2061 that resembles the current one might be impossible, he said.

If nothing is done, what would happen to Louisiana's coast from a 100-year storm surge in 2061 (click to enlarge)

But if the projects outlined in the plan work, Louisiana would see more land gained than lost by 2042, with that gain averaging about 2.5 square miles a year by 2061. By then, the projects would have built 859 square miles of new land, although much of the gain will be offset by erosion elsewhere.

“We put together realistic parameters here,” Graves said.

‘Moderate’ take on future

The $50 billion that the plan requires over 50 years includes a share of fines from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, congressional appropriations for levee and restoration programs, and a share of federal offshore oil money that will increase to about $200 million a year in 2017.

Improved levee protection and strategically placed restoration projects will decrease by $5.4 billion the average annual damage caused by flooding from storms after 2061, Graves said — though he estimates there will still be an average of $2.3 billion in damage.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityEast Grand Terre Island before a $31 million rebuilding program.

The report emphasizes that even with the additional improvements, people living along the coast will still face risk from flooding.

The damage estimate is based on a “moderate” view of future land loss, adopting midrange scenarios for the strength of hurricanes and the rate of sinking soils and sea-level rise.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityEast Grand Terre Island after rebuilding of the 2.8-mile, 620-acre barrier shoreline and marsh.

Those estimates are based on land loss rates ranging from 15 square miles to 51 square miles a year. The less-optimistic scenario would result in the loss of 1,756 square miles during the next 50 years, or almost as much land as was lost in the past 70 years.

Though it uses estimates based on the Army Corps of Engineers’ climate change-driven scenarios, the report itself does not include an explanation of climate change, or even use the words “climate change” or “global warming.”

The plan calls for allocating half the $50 billion to risk-reduction projects such as levees, and half to restoration projects.

Varying levels of strength

The master plan includes both 100-year and 500-year levee projects. A 100-year levee protects from surges caused by a hurricane with a 1 percent chance of occurring any year, similar to Hurricane Gustav’s effects in New Orleans in 2008. A 500-year levee protects from surges caused by a hurricane with a 0.2 percent chance of occurring in any year, a bit stronger than Hurricane Katrina as it went ashore in Mississippi.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityGoose Point Marsh along the northern shoreline of Lake Pontchartrain before a $20.8 million restoration project.

Restoration measures will include the use of sediment and water from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers to maintain and rebuild land, including cypress swamps, marshes, ridges and barrier islands. Projects will include diversions that would pump as much as 250,000 cubic feet per second of sediment and water during high-river events, and much smaller amounts at other times. The sediment would build and maintain wetlands.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityGoose Point Marsh after 437 acres of new wetlands were created and and 114 acres of degraded wetlands were nourished in 2009.

Other projects will pump dredged sediment through pipelines to rapidly build land bridges and wetlands that would then be maintained with diversions. Similar methods would be used to build and maintain barrier islands and beaches.

New 100-year levees would be built during the next 20 years to protect Slidell and LaPlace. The Slidell levee system would cost $72 million, while extending the existing lakefront levees to LaPlace would cost $469 million. The levee at Alliance in Plaquemines Parish also would be upgraded to 100-year protection, for $510 million.

To the west, the proposed, 72-mile Morganza to the Gulf levee surrounding Houma would be built to 100-year standards, for $4 billion. The 100-year Larose to Golden Meadow levee would cost $258 million.

A new 100-year levee also would be built to protect communities in Iberia and Vermilion parishes, for $1.6 billion.

Major N.O. area upgrade

Between 2031 and 2061, the recently completed 100-year New Orleans area levee system would be upgraded to provide 500-year protection for $1.8 billion. A 100-year ring levee would be built at about the same time around the Lafitte area, for $856 million. A 500-year ring levee around Lake Charles also would be built, costing $1.1 billion.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityBarataria Basin Landbridge before dedicated dredging.

The report says $12.9 billion will be spent on “nonstructural measures,” including raising residential and commercial properties, “floodproofing” homes and businesses, and buying homes in the most at-risk areas. State officials say they expect only 70 percent to 80 percent of those eligible to participate, and they will continue to recommend that participation be voluntary.

View full sizeLouisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration AuthorityBarataria Basin Landbridge after dedicated dredging.

Those measures would be available to communities like Isle de Jean Charles, a village in Terrebonne Parish largely populated by members of the United Houma Nations. The Army Corps of Engineers, in approving that Morganza to the Gulf levee system, determined it was not cost-effective to extend it to include the village.

“Could you take $300 million to protect Isle de Jean Charles or some other smaller community? Yes, you could do that,” Graves said. “But what that means is a trade-off for maybe the 500-year level of protection for New Orleans, where you get the best bang for the buck.”

While it’s still unclear how the “nonstructural” projects would be paid for, state officials said state money would be used where necessary to elevate homes to levels required by the National Flood Insurance Program, which could be as much as 14 to 17 feet above sea level.

Parishes will be asked to incorporate nonstructural requirements in zoning ordinances and building codes, and the state also will be lobbying federal agencies, including FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for financial assistance.

Investment in marshes

The biggest chunk of money set aside for restoration, $17.9 billion, will be spent on marsh creation.

In the New Orleans area, the biggest of these projects during the plan’s first 20 years will be the creation of 8,513 acres of marsh in the eastern New Orleans landbridge, which divides Lake Borgne from Lake Pontchartrain, for $2.448 billion.

A similar project creates 5,378 acres of marsh to the west of Myrtle Grove in the Barataria Basin for $1.7 billion.

Another $304 million will create 2,443 acres of marsh in the Golden Triangle area, sandwiched between the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet and the northwestern edge of Lake Borgne.

In the plan’s last 30 years, the biggest project is the creation of 15,972 acres of wetlands in the Biloxi Marsh adjacent to Delacroix, for $1.6 billion. Another 2,009 acres of marsh will be built along the northern rim of Barataria Bay for $223 million.

While only $4.3 billion is set aside for diversions, they’re likely to be the most controversial projects in the master plan. There will be seven diversions along the Mississippi River, with all but one operating only during moderate to high river flows.

For instance, a $219 million diversion into upper Breton Sound on the east side of the river near Braithwaite would capture 8 percent of the river’s flow when it rises above 200,000 cubic feet per second, increasing with the flow. During high river events, the diversion would pump 250,000 cubic feet per second into the sound, about as much water as the Bonnet Carre Spillway is designed to move into Lake Pontchartrain during emergencies.

A diversion into lower Breton Sound would operate with a maximum of 50,000 cubic feet per second under a similar stepped scale.

On the western side of the river, similarly sized diversions would pump water into Barataria Bay at Myrtle Grove and at Empire.

In the southeastern region, the plan also includes $845 million for rebuilding barrier islands and headlands along the coast from just south of Port Fourchon in Lafourche Parish to Sandy Point, just west of Venice.

Residents’ voices to be heard

The public is being asked to comment on the draft plan through Feb. 25.

The restoration authority will hold three public meetings across the state. Each begins with an open house at 1 p.m., followed by a public hearing from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30: p.m.:

• Jan. 23, New Orleans, at the Lindy Boggs Conference Center Auditorium on the University of New Orleans campus.
• Jan. 24, Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center
• Jan. 25, Lake Charles Civic Center.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

© 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

BP funds wetland restoration, oyster projects

 By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

In a small nibble at what is expected to be a very large apple, federal and state officials announced approval Wednesday of the first $57 million for projects to reverse the damage caused by the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, including $28 million for Louisiana projects. Louisiana's share will build more than 100 acres of wetlands in Plaquemines Parish, place oyster cultch on six public seed beds in several parishes, and upgrade an oyster hatchery on Grand Isle.

View full sizeRusty Costanza, The Times-Picayune archiveMarsh erodes into Bay Jimmy in February. Officials are concerned that areas such as this that lost grass due to the BP oil spill will erode faster that areas that still have healthy grass.

The money is part of a $1 billion "early restoration" payment that BP pledged as partial compensation for damage to natural resources caused by the oil from the catastrophic failure of its Macondo well.

The projects were approved by a committee of trustees representing the five Gulf Coast states and the federal departments of Interior and Commerce, and by BP. Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the trustees and the parties responsible for the spill are required to complete a "Natural Resources Damage Assessment" that measures damage to resources and recommends ways to compensate for them. BP and other parties responsible for the spill may have to pay as much as $20 billion in damages.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the projects during a news conference called to announce the results of the first sale of federal offshore oil leases in the Gulf since the BP disaster.

The news conference was held at Al Sunseri's 135-year-old P&J Oyster Co. in the French Quarter, which was forced to dramatically curtail business in the aftermath of the spill because of both a lack of oysters and public fears that Louisiana oysters were contaminated.

EnlargeDavid Grunfeld, The Times-PicayuneDAVID GRUNFELD / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, left and Garret Graves, Chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority for the State of Louisiana, watch Rachel Jacobson, U.S Department of Interior Acting Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, eat a raw oyster during a visit to P&J Oyster Company in the French Quarter Wednesday, December 14, 2011.Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar at P&J Oysters gallery (11 photos)

The oyster cultch will be placed on 850 acres of public seed beds at six locations: 3-Mile Bay and Drum Bay in St. Bernard Parish, Lake Fortuna and South Black Bay on the east bank of Plaquemines, Hackberry Bay in Lafourche Parish, and Sister or Caillou Lake in Terrebonne Parish. The seed beds are used as a source of oyster larvae by owners of private leases in several parishes, who make up the bulk of Louisiana's oyster harvesters.

The state's oyster hatchery at the Department of Wildlife & Fisheries laboratory on Grand Isle also will be improved as part of the project.

The oyster project is designed to offset the effects of oil contamination of some oyster beds, and damage to others during efforts to block oil from moving into Louisiana marshes.

The state opened numerous freshwater diversion structures along the Mississippi River in an effort to keep oil from moving into wetlands, and the freshwater hurt numerous oyster beds. Garret Graves, senior adviser on coastal issues to Gov. Bobby Jindal, said that because it was a step taken to fight the spilled oil, the damage it caused is considered by Louisiana to be the result of the spill.

View full size

Mike Voisin, owner of Motivatit Seafoods Inc. and a member of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, said the state's oyster industry lobbied for inclusion of the oyster projects, adding that oyster production this year is down 65 percent.

"This is the trustees recognizing that damage to the oyster industry (from the spill) is an important issue, and BP also concurring that it's an important issue," Voisin said. "It's not the end, but it's a big step in the right direction."

The Lake Hermitage project in Plaquemines Parish will allow about 70 acres of marsh terraces that were to be built as part of an ongoing federal-state project to be replaced with 104 acres of unbroken marsh. An existing pipeline used to pump sediment mined from the Mississippi River will be used to fill in the project area, which is west of Pointe a la Hache.

Projects approved in other states include $11 million for oyster cultch and $2.6 million for an artificial reef in Mississippi; $9.4 million for marsh creation and $1.1 million for coastal dune improvements in Alabama; and $4.4 million for boat ramps and $600,000 for coastal dunes in Florida.

The projects are outlined in an early restoration plan and environmental assessment available at www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.

The public will have 60 days to comment on the projects, ending on Feb. 14. Public meetings will be held in Louisiana on Jan. 31, Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Conservationists protect cypress-tupelo swamp

Conservation groups' purchase will preserve 675 acres of Maurepas Swamp

 Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune 

A consortium of conservation groups has arranged the purchase of 675 acres of cypress-tupelo swamp bordering the town of Maurepas, assuring its protection as a refuge for migratory waterfowl, neotropical songbirds and several species of ducks. Saving the trees from logging also protects them as a hurricane storm surge and wind barrier for nearby communities.

Higher ground on the properties in rural Livingston Parish also protects part of a land bridge used by Louisiana black bears migrating between the Atchafalaya River delta and forested areas to the north.

The three properties were purchased by the Conservation Fund from the Fritchie family, Canal Land Co. and Bilten LLC, and then sold to the Land Trust of Southeast Louisiana for about $1 million. The Conservation Fund connects willing landowners with conservation organizations and federal agencies, purchasing wildlife habitat with its own money and then getting repaid by the buyers.

In the Maurepas Swamp, property owners wanting to clear-cut cypress have run into problems in recent years with the Army Corps of Engineers, which has prohibited building log roads through wetlands, and with environmentalists intent on saving cypress from being turned into garden mulch.

“Buying property through these types of measures means circumventing the head-to-head conflicts between landowner and regulatory agencies, particularly as related to cypress logging,” said Ray Herndon, Louisiana state director with the Conservation Fund.

The land trust used a $1 million bird conservation grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to acquire the property. The grant allows the area to become part of the National Audubon Society’s West Pontchartrain-Maurepas Swamp Important Bird Area Habitat Conservation project.

The original landowners retain mineral rights for at least 10 years, but there are no plans to explore for oil or gas, said Dr. Jay Addison, president of the land trust. No forestry will be allowed on the property, except to remove invasive species, he said.

The trust, created in 2004 and based in Hammond, owns or controls 2,500 acres in Louisiana, including the 9 Mile Island property at Lake St. Catherine in eastern New Orleans.

The Maurepas wetland properties abut the state’s 68,000-acre Lake Maurepas Wildlife Management Area, which was established in the late 1990s with assistance from the Conservation Fund. The fund added 1,700 acres to the management area in 2009.

View full size

While this latest acquisition is small, compared with the 100,000 acres of cypress-tupelo forest already protected in Maurepas Swamp, keeping higher land along Chinquapin canal from being developed assures that protected wetlands to the east and south will not be fragmented, said Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the Gulf of Mexico for the National Audubon Society.

“The 675 acres is a critical parcel within the larger conservation landscape for many of the birds we’re interested in,” Driscoll said. Many of the species, including several that are threatened or endangered, need large areas not affected by development for both feeding ranges and breeding areas, she said.

Migratory waterfowl using the area as a resting stop during their migration and as a wintering ground include northern pintail, lesser scaup, and mottled and mallard ducks.

For hunters, protecting the land both guarantees their catch and a continued economic benefit from their hunting, she said.

The new property and another 800 acres nearby will protect 3,800 breeding pairs of the prothonotary warbler, considered the “canary” of the swamp and a rapidly declining species, and 3,500 breeding pairs of the northern parula, also believed to be in decline. It also will protect 200 breeding pairs of the painted bunting.

Other species found in the cypress swamp include the yellow-throated warbler, yellow-billed cuckoo and wood thrush.

The area also is used by species more likely to be recognized by Louisianans, including white ibis, bald eagle, little blue and green herons; and those rarely seen, including king and yellow rails and least bitterns.

More acquisitions of Maurepas Swamp land are likely, Herndon said, making it a hot spot for both conservation and wetland restoration efforts.

Mark Schleifstein can be reached at mschleifstein@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3327.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.