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Hi, everyone, and welcome to Louisiana Spotlight.

I'm André Moreau, managing editor here at LPB.

I am currently standing on the newest land in Louisiana.

While acres of marshes and coastland wash away each year here at Spanish Pass near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

The land the coast is actually growing.

Why is the coast at Spanish pass growing?

Because of the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, a 50 year, $50 billion blueprint which concentrates efforts to restore, sustain and protect Louisiana's coastal ecosystem and communities.

The 50 year plan puts science and engineering into action with projects that focus on marsh creation, barrier island and headland restoration, shoreline protection, sediment diversion, bridge restoration, flood risk and reduction.

The need for projects like this are growing stronger every year.

I've covered the coast for decades and I've watched it shrink and in some cases disappear.

While the storms of the coast protects us from.

They get bigger and bigger.

It was after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 when the state legislature decided Louisiana needed a comprehensive master plan to protect from future storms and restore the dwindling coast restitution.

Moneys from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 would assist as a catalyst to put large portions of that plan into action.

The master plan has been the guiding document since the original master plan in 2007, but it really changed in 2012 when it became a much more focused plan and nearly all the project that CPRA has pursued since 2012 have come from past master plans.

We're at the LSU Center for River Studies in Baton Rouge, a center built to showcase the work of the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan and its projects.

When you look around, this is sort of shows all of the things that are happening and that will happen to restore Louisiana.

Yeah, I mean, I think this is an area that really tells the story of coastal Louisiana.

So if you look up here on the map, everything obviously here that's in red has been lost.

But if you were to overlay this red area of the map to existing land that is in place today, several parishes in this portion of the state would essentially be gone.

And so when you're losing landmass at the rate that we are.

Not only is your environment disappearing, your wetlands are disappearing.

And obviously that's an environmental concern, but your inland communities become more and more vulnerable to strengthening storms.

And strengthening storms Is something that Louisiana knows all too well in the Southwest.

Communities today are still recovering from Hurricane Laura, which left a path of destruction in 2020.

But despite catastrophic wind damage, the city of Lake Charles was spared from Laura's 17 foot storm surge.

Chip explains It was thanks to this area of the state's natural storm buffer.

There is a reason why that water did not reach I-10.

Yes, there was a shift in the storm, but it was because of the natural buffer that exists in Cameron Parish, because of the the shoreline, because of our terracing, our ridges, our marsh that helped knock down that storm surge and the statistic that we always tell the public is for every two miles of wetlands that exist on the ground, storm surge can be knocked down by one foot.

So that natural buffer is really helping protect our inland levee protection systems, are hurricane risk reduction systems that are helping protect us.

And that's the reason behind an ongoing pursuit of updating Louisiana's coastal master plan as South Louisiana continues to change.

So does the technology and information available to help predict and restore our state's fragile coast.

So it's a 50 year plan, but we also updated every six years.

And so it's really setting our priorities for the next six years.

And we will update this plan.

We may learn new information that requires us to change course, but this is intended to guide our decision making in the near term, not just looking 50 years into the future, and that there's been incredible progress made over the last several years in restoring and protecting South Louisiana from over 70 miles of barrier islands, which is our first line of defense.

So any time you have a storm that's coming on shore, that first speed bump that a surge is going to hit, or our barrier islands, close to 70,000 acres of new land have been created by dredging and pumping sediment within.

I think the thing that is probably most comforting to the public is that over 300 miles of new levees have been built since 2007.

So 300 miles.

Get in your car and drive from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Birmingham, Alabama.

That's a lot of levees.

And so if you build every single project that's included in the master plan, you have the overwhelming majority of people that are protected by some sort of system.

And then you can create over 200,000 acres of new land.

And to me, that that's worth every single penny.

But there are plenty of people in Louisiana who don't see eye to eye on how that money is spent.

The current Coastal Master plan brings a price tag of $50 billion with it, which could increase and more than half of the projects not yet funded.

The effort to restore coastal Louisiana could also bring change to generations of people who live and work there.

the argue you can't put a price on culture.

26 million of that money is going to go to waste.

What's 26 million going to do for a lifetime?

Because you're not talking about a one time deal.

We're not you know, we're talking about the lifetime, they█re buying my lifetime out, but they're not actually giving me any money.

And 26 million won't touch.

You know what we█re losing.

And, you know, I don't want their money.

I want.

I want my life to get a closer look at the Louisiana Coastal Master plan in action.

We went by Airboat to one of the latest dredging projects, this one near Venice, and with Brad Miller, who is the project manager of the Spanish Path Restoration.

That's what we're seeing right here.

This was not land not too long ago.

That's correct.

Everything you see here about two years ago was all open water.

And this project is restoring that to land and in some rich habitat.

We're building about 1600 acres of marsh and ridge.

The project is one of the biggest projects that CPR has ever built in total of about seven miles long.

There█s 1600 acres.

Right now, we're about three quarters of the way done.

But the dredge is actually about nine miles away in the river, pumping this sediment from the river bottom to create land.

A big project usually takes two or three years to design and permit and get land rights and funding secured.

This is a time lapse of the land built here since August 2021.

The construction is projected to be completed later this year.

So you've been on this.

You can see that the end in sight, but you don't see what it's going to be like 40, 50 years from now.

What's the overall process of what this is being done here and what's it going to do for the master plan?

Well, you know, the master plan has a variety of projects in it at project types in it.

And this is a big land building project.

So we expect it to be here many years down the road and in the future.

Other projects will come behind it in this area and other areas to build land around it through either dredging or even sediment diversions to help build new land.

In the future, it'll be 25 years in the future.

We're standing right here, 25 years.

What are we seeing?

Well, we should see a nice ridge with some some woody vegetation on it and a beautiful marsh platform.

Full grown trees, marsh things intact and tight.

That's the intent.

Yet for a fully functioning wetland where there was open water previously.

There's a lot to unpack there, but we're lucky to have coastal restoration experts here with us and our LPB Studios to help us get a better understanding of the Louisiana Master plan.

First of all, Dr. Linda Bui is an environmental sciences professor at LSU and an ecosystem ecologist who specializes in the impacts of human mediated and natural disasters on coastal systems.

Chris McLindon is a geologist and owner of McLindon Geosciences, which studies the geology of coastal Louisiana and the Drivers of Change of our coastal wetlands.

And Chris Macaluso is the director for the Center of Marine Fisheries at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

There he works to develop projects that address fisheries, habitat restoration and improve access to fisheries throughout the Gulf Coast.

So I want to start by hearing about some of the work that all of you do with the coast and its ecosystems.

And Dr. Bui, I'm going to start with you.

We've done some of that work together as a matter of fact, along the coast.

Yes, we have.

We met during the oil spill, I think, out in the marsh.

That's right.

We so I am an ecosystem ecologist and I ask questions about new land.

If they build it, will all the organisms come?

Yes, they will.

And we ask if they do come, is it the same as created?

Are the created marshes the same as natural marshes?

And I also study cypress trees, cypress swamps and ask questions about why we have ghost forests emerging in Louisiana and how we can solve those problems.

What is the reason for that?

The ghost forests.

We think that it's one.

There's a couple of different things there.

The forests are tend to be impounded.

They're levied.

And so there's not a flow of water.

The cypress trees don't get an opportunity for to dry out.

So the young cypress trees are basically drowning.

And also elevated levels of nutrients because of the lack of flow of water.

There's too much nitrogen in the system, which is killing the immature trees.

All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. McLindon.

I want to hear about the work that you do and have done.

I'm a geologist.

I worked in the oil and gas industry for 40 years.

And my my emphasis for the past ten years has been bringing subsurface geology to the surface and examining the impacts there.

So I've been fortunate to be able to work with local universities on research projects, and we're in the process of of trying to bring that into the fold, as it were, for for coastal planning and project design.

Mr. Macaluso.

Well, I'm a lifelong Louisiana, avid outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman.

I've been given an opportunity to work for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership for the last decade, and we've really focused on helping, you know, to develop better federal and state legislation, better policy when it comes to coastal restoration work in Louisiana and really throughout the Gulf and all across the country.

But my focus is here in Louisiana, along the Gulf Coast, and working with lawmakers and policymakers and kind of building the connection between them and the hunter hunters and fishermen here in Louisiana who are concerned about coastal land loss.

And obviously the Mississippi River Delta being one of the greatest, you know, wildlife and fisheries producers in the world, one of the greatest places to come hunt and fish.

It's a it's a high priority for our organization.

And the ones that we work with.

When I ask, have you or all of your organizations worked with CPRA to propose projects to this master plan or past master plan?

I'll begin with you.

We used to work for the CPA, right?

I did.

I was the communications director when the CPA was first established after Hurricane Katrina.

So for about five years through hurricanes, you know, through several hurricanes and also the oil spill, I served as communications director for CPRA and worked on a couple of master plans.

And then I transitioned into working for a nonprofit.

But yeah, we have we've worked with CPRA very, very closely on proposed projects with the Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

We do.

We meet with we've met with hunting and fishing organizations across the Gulf Coast, especially in the wake of the oil spill when it was trying to be decided how the money would be directed to identify the kinds of projects that were high priority in terms of addressing the loss of access, but also dealing with some of the long term habitat loss projects.

And a lot of the projects that you see in the master plan, like the diversions, like barrier island restoration, like the plan moving forward for oyster reef restoration, which, you know, estuaries are critically important to recreational fishing.

You know, those are all projects that we've pushed for, advocated for and helped work on the policy and the funding for.

Well, it's something that brings me to you, Dr. Bui, because you and Louisiana Oyster Farmers proposed a project for the current master plan.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, I worked with in Plaquemines Parish with some oyster fishers and because I think it's really important that because we know that they some of them disagree with some of the larger aspects of the master plan to I wanted to listen to them and see if we could come to a very solid project and we proposed a Brood Reef's basically reefs that would be not harvested and left alone, but use the oyster fishers expertise to build those to decide where they are.

And I can see that that's been implemented in some of these integrated projects.

In the Master Plan, your project that was accepted in itself, or you're saying that you're seeing some of that?

Well, I would say the way we wrote the project is not there in its entirety, but I can see that the spirit of the project is in the master plan.

And then also another part of it was actually paying the oysters for their expertise, but also the oyster fishers for and also for the length of time they're going to have to travel in the gas and things that the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries started a program a couple of years ago to to engage them in that.

So that was also part of the plan.

All right.

Thank you so much.

Mr.. Have you worked with the CPA?

I have.

And if you have exactly in which capacity, I have proposed projects through McLennan Geosciences.

But probably more importantly, I submitted comments on the mid Barataria sediment diversion for the environmental impact statement.

And what kind of reaction have you?

None.

But this was done jointly with two university professors.

We recognize there's a fault crossing the diversion site.

We recommended a thorough geological evaluation and unfortunately it wasn't taken into consideration.

So that's not happened?

No.

Is there a major problem going forward with that?

I'm concerned.

Yeah.

I mean, we know historically that faults have caused crevasse of the river.

That's that's an accepted fact.

So it was I mean, exactly.

So a the in this case, it happened prior to the artificial levee.

So the natural levee is breached.

Right.

And the flow of the river flows uncontrolled out onto the land surface that today that would be an utterly catastrophic event.

Okay.

Speaking of diversions, there are many types of projects that make up the Louisiana master plan, but none have been in the news more than river diversions.

A Future Without Action paints a grim picture for coastal Louisiana.

We did this by building the levees after the flood, a 27 foot flood control and navigation of the Mississippi River.

But we didn't have a mandate for erosion restoration.

We didn't know what it was going to do.

For 90 years.

Now we haven't replaced.

It is just sinking out of sight and saltwater intrudes in.

And here we are and we lost 2400 square miles of Louisiana.

The reason we have a coastal master plan is because of the levees that came up along the Mississippi River after the 1927 flood.

Those levees kept the sediment from depositing and continuing to build on to Louisiana.

It was foretold.

And in 1897, National Geographic article, it said maybe not this generation to the next, but later generations will feel the effects of this silt not being deposited and they will have to deal with it then.

It's exactly what we're doing now.

And if you look to your right, you'll see where the levee used to be.

Captain Ryan Lambert has worked on the river for more than 40 years and runs a hunting and fishing guide service out of Buras.

He knows firsthand the power of the river here at Neptune Pass near Buras.

We see how quickly the coastal marsh can be revived when the Mississippi River is allowed to naturally deposit its sediment across the landscape.

Two years ago, that was a bank of east right there that a lot of land there.

Everything that you see inside of that, as far as you can see, was all open water.

20 years ago, you'd be in here with a double lugger fishing for shrimp.

Look at it now.

What a success story.

Every area that is connected to a river today, or the only areas in Louisiana that are actively building land.

Look in the West Lake.

Absolutely.

And south central Louisiana.

Look at Neptune.

Pass on the east bank of the Mississippi River, Mardi Gras pass, and then even some of the freshwater diversions that we have that are designed to manage salinity regimes within a particular basin.

While those freshwater diversions aren't designed to build land.

They actually are.

This is the Davis Pond Diversion, located in Saint Charles Parish.

Created in 2009, this freshwater river diversion was designed to reduce saltwater intrusion in the Upper Barataria Basin.

So I'm just going to take a soil core here because this is all this is new land building here.

But what has since been observed is that sediment deposited over time has aided wetland growth.

From here to here is all brand new mineral sediment deposited by the diversion.

And you can tell that because it's all clay and silty.

And then here it's based from here down.

It's basically pure organic matter that was existing before.

I'll give that a foot, maybe a little more, but a foot of deposition, four miles from the mouth of the diversion from a diversion that wasn't supposed to build land.

So when you talk about coastal restoration, it's not one single effort.

It's obviously a single program, but it's a portfolio of different concepts.

It only seems natural to harness the power of the river to rebuild coastal Louisiana.

That river has the ability to help sustain the land that is in place today and the land that we're building through some of our dredging projects.

But a dramatic change in this ecosystem could have an adverse effect on the generations of people who utilize the coast for their livelihood.

You know, one thing about the coastal Master plan, there is a lot of good things in it.

A lot of good.

But there are some bad things.

And if we don't get those bad things changed, if we don't change the course, like the diversions, the stuff going straight into, you know, seafood producing areas, you know, it's it's definitely going to deal with that flow.

There are impacts there.

There are impacts that we recognize.

But you had a sustainable fishery in this state prior to the Mississippi River being levee.

And so are there going to be impacts?

Yes.

It's a willingness to adapt, a willingness to a change to to change, because if we don't, the scenario that is in front of south Louisiana is an unacceptable one.

Mr. McLindon, One aspect of past master plans has been the river diversions that have created a lot of controversy.

You study the geology of Louisiana coast extensively, and as a geologist, how do you see river diversions fitting into the master plan?

I think it depends primarily on location.

So diverting the flow of the river into an open body of water such as wax lake outlet or Neptune Pass, it's going to allow for immediate deposition of sediment at the mouth of that opening.

Diverting 50000 to 150000 cubic feet per second of flow into saline and brackish marsh is going to mean that that that flow has to cut a channel to open water.

So there's going to be a significant amount of erosion initially at a site like the observatory, sediment diversion.

There's also going to be quite a bit of flooding of the sailing and brackish marshes, which is going to cause some weight.

This loss itself, as is seen at the outflow of the Caernarvon diversion.

So the question is, are the subsequent gains due to sediment deposition going to outweigh the initial losses?

And I don't think anybody knows the answer to that.

My concern is the point where they're attempting to build that new land with the subsequent gains is right across an active geological fault, which is throughout geologically history have been the primary driver of subsidence in south Louisiana.

So there's going to be a challenge at that location for that new land to maintain elevation, and that's my concern.

Dr. Bui what you just said, your reaction to that?

I think we need the geologists at the table.

I think we need to know about where the faults are.

I think that the engine, if I understand how the design is from the mid Barataria sediment diversion is ideas to slow the water down to try to prevent the the depth, you know, the destroying of the existing wetlands and to deposit the sediment as the water slows down.

The challenge is, yes, you are going to destroy some of the wetlands to do it.

But as somebody who studies disturbance, ecology, disasters, we know that we can't just take our measurement and look at it during the changes that are happening.

We have to sort of look at the long game.

And so we have to not look at the disturbed system, but look at how the system bounces back after the disturbance.

And we know that the system will bounce back, will bounce back.

Mr. Macaluso.

Yeah, I think what Dr. Bui is saying is, is what I have observed in the areas where I like to go fishing, you know, especially on the east side of the river or western Terrebonne Parish, where you're seeing a lot of sediment input into the system, you see a lot of freshwater interaction in those places and subsequently you see healthier marsh, you see a healthier ecosystem that's capable of producing a much more diverse set of fisheries or wildlife habitat.

You see a lot more ducks there, you see a lot more a certain kind of shrimp production.

You see more crabs produced in those areas where you've got the submerged vegetation, you see the submerged vegetation, be able to absorb the sediment and even you see oysters in places.

And what I'm really concerned about is, you know, as as Mr. Kline said in the piece, you know, the prospect of us doing nothing is pretty grim, especially for the Barataria Basin.

You know, we've lost 100 we lost a hundred square miles from Hurricane Ida alone, and that was after the CPRA had invested, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in barrier island restoration and bridge restoration through sediment deposition, through dredges without a diversion there to feed those, you know, those projects without the nutrients and the sediment coming out of the Mississippi River to kickstart that habitat.

You're going to see your fisheries of the Barataria Bay and continue to decline pretty precipitously.

The master plan is a 50 year, $50 billion plan, and some are asking if the cost is worth the reward.

With the accelerated rate of sea level rise and subsidence, is the science strong enough to bank on the fact that this is what we're doing and this we need to do?

Mr. McLindon start with you.

Yeah.

So one of the really interesting things that I've become aware of is the data coming out of the Crimson Network, Coast wide reference monitoring system, 400 stations across the coast.

We saw the accretion at Davis Pond.

That magnitude of accretion is happening all across south Louisiana.

75% of the stations in the Delta region are gaining elevation relative to a fixed rod.

So it's a little bit of a misconception that we've lost a of supply.

There's a fairly robust sediment supply and it's coming from the tidal influx.

And those values, the values of accretion currently in most stations are greater than the rate of subsidence plus sea level rise.

So yeah, the opportunities for sustainability are significant and I'm very optimistic about it long term.

Dr. Bui, same thing.

Is the science strong enough that we can bank on the land that we're building, staying?

And there's I can give you a couple examples Throughout the master plan, the amount of science, the models, the are very robust.

Also looking at Ryan Lambert's project that he got funded by Ducks Unlimited where he built the land coming out of Neptune, pass by creating crevasses and slowing down the river with terraces.

He spent 400 acres in two years for about the cost of about $200 an acre.

And so do I think that's evidence that we're on the right track with the science.

What's being attempted here in Louisiana and what's being done?

Is there any other place in the world that can compare to this?

I mean, I think when you look at some of the large scale watersheds in this country, like the Everglades, like the Chesapeake Basin, they are attempting it, you know, the Everglades got a pretty extensive list of projects.

And really, there's a lot of analogies to be drawn with what's happening in the Everglades and what's happening in coastal Louisiana in which the plumbing has been broken, essentially.

And we're trying to plug some of the natural plumbing back into the system to move the water and the sediment, the nutrients where it needs to go.

I think to the extent that Louisiana is having to deal with sea level rise and subsides and things like that, I don't think anywhere else in this country especially is dealing with it on that scale.

Right.

Right.

What do you all of you hope to see from future coastal master plans?

Dr. Bui I'll start with you.

I think that they need to continue to engage the science as they've done.

I would like to see them engage the community as they've done, maybe engage the community a little sooner in the planning before they get their plans decided.

And I'd like to see it implemented.

I'd like to see all the and I like the regional decisions that they're making, how they're going to do make decisions on a regional basis instead of a per project basis.

So I think I think it's looking up.

But for you, Mr. McLindon what I would like to see is a shift away from a conceptual approach where we're going to build new land.

We want to walk away from a project with a measurement of how much land we'd just built to looking at how land is actually built into coastal wetlands.

And a lot of it is just a wide distribution of sediment that you can't actually put a measure on immediately.

So there's an infilling of interior ponds from tidal flux and being willing to accept that we're going to engage in some things.

And I support the idea of putting sediment berms along the edges of the marshes and just letting them wash in.

And it might take ten years to be able to measure that change.

But if we can do that, I think ultimately working with nature in that way is going to prove to be the best long term sustainability.

And Mr. Macaluso, your thoughts?

I think funding funding is critically important, So I'd really like to see the plan address some of that.

And I think sediment management in the future is going to be critically important too.

As the sediment comes out of these diversions as we get to sustainability and really hopefully the uptick in fisheries that we see from that nutrient, that sediment, that habitat being returned, we do need to find a way to manage the sediment, to put it in the places where it can best be used to capture additional sediment, where it can aid in navigation, for instance.

I mean, we are going to block some some boating access through through introducing sediment.

So we need to work on those things.

And I think another thing is, you know, looking at the parts of the coast that are getting fresh water right now and how the commercial fisheries and recreational fisheries interact with those areas and taking those practices into the areas where fresh water is going to be reintroduced, I think would help the recreational fishermen, the charter fishermen, the commercial fishermen in those areas understand better how to adapt to what's going to come in the future.

There's a lot to think about, isn't there?

A lot of cause and effect.

Also, I want to thank all of you for your thoughtful input.

We will continue this conversation with our final panel.

But first, hear from the chairman of the Oyster Task Force.

We sat down with third generation oyster farmer and marina owner Mitch Jurassic to hear some of the issues he is facing due to the Coastal Master plan.

Mitch, we are in your domain here in Empire.

Tell us a little bit about this place.

You've got a marina which has cabins, restaurant, a lot of stuff.

We're a full service Marine and we are, you know, we have lobby.

We have the restaurant upstairs is open Thursday through Sunday.

The marina is open seven days a week, 5 a.m. to 5 p.m.. And I bought it back in 2019.

I'd like to hear about your role as a lead spokesperson with the oyster.

Right.

I'm the city of Louisiana, the chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force.

We're like a governing body that brings recommendations to the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries now with the CPRA and with the Coastal Master Plan.

There are aspects of that that I suspect you're not wild about.

You know, one thing we don't want and we don't need is freshwater being introduced directly into our oyster growing area, which is what would happen in the diversion project mid Barataria sediment diversion in the mid Breton sediment diversion will be the nail in the coffin.

So you talk to C.P.R.

about we talked to them during the last council meetings and parish meetings last ten years, and we talk and we've sent letters.

We've tried to convince them let's build land by dredging, not diverting.

Although the oysterman in Plaquemines Parish would prefer dredging to rebuild the coastline, the cost and labor of dredging the Mississippi River and piping it sediment miles away far exceeds the cost of river diversions.

But oystermen like Mitch are saying the numbers just aren't adding up.

You know, just recently the mid Barataria sediment diversion, you know, got funded and permanent and funded.

They could take that two and a quarter billion dollars.

And in five years, Bill 47 square miles of land.

The diversion is projected to build, possibly build 21 square miles in the next 50 years.

But lose 50 square miles in that time frame.

To me, that's not a good use of money.

This is one time funds that are coming in and you should be using it wisely with that in coming at some point.

How have you looked ahead to plan for maybe some changes you have to make in your business?

Terrible Parish will still be all right.

Lafourche Parish, Jefferson Parish, the West Bank of Plaquemines Parish, is going to be almost void of any oysters, any oyster production.

So it's very tough to move.

I'm third generation and my time's getting short.

Yeah, and it's going to be very tough for me to have to move.

And there's not really no other areas to move to.

What CPR rate tells everyone, Oh, we'll just have to travel a little further.

We'll have to do this.

Well, there is no further to go.

We we already at the Gulf and the Gulf coming at us.

So what are you expecting?

I'm expecting within the first six months for the salinity to be near zero on the back side of Grand Isle, all our recreational fish and commercial fishermen, shrimp, crabs, oysters, the speckled trout, redfish, they're going to they're going to disappear because they need salinities of 15 points per thousand or higher to successfully spawn.

We won't have that in this estuary anymore.

It's not just going to stop at the fishermen.

It's going to be places like these marinas, the local grocery store, because you're not just losing the fisheries, you're losing culture, heritage, get taken away.

We're exploring all our options.

We're going to do whatever we have to do to try to try to convince them, hey, let's let's stop anyone.

This is you want to tell us about.

Well, one of them is eventually going to wind up a lawsuit.

You know, we're going to have the fishermen going to have to get together.

We're going to have to come up with some way of trying to stop this thing and ultimate that the only way.

Sad to say, may be a lawsuit.

The issues are complex and there are clearly many different interests in this Louisiana master plan.

We're lucky to have some of the architects of the master plan and the experts who will dictate its future.

Here with us in studio.

Joining us again is Dr. Linda Bui and environmental scientists expert at LSU and ecosystems ecologist specializing in the impacts of disasters on our coastal systems.

Bren Haase is the executive director of the CPRA, which is developed and released the 2023 Master Plan this past January.

And Representative Joseph Orgeron represents District 54 in Jefferson and Lafayette's parishes and is the executive director of Restore or Retreat.

That's a nonprofit coastal advocacy group.

I'd like to start by getting some initial reactions to the piece that we just heard.

The river diversions have been some of the most contentious reactions and parts of this master plan and all the discussions leading up to this.

We just heard from Mr. Jurisich.

So let me begin with you, Mr. Haase as you just heard this piece.

How do you respond to it?

Sure.

Well, we know Mitch quite well and have had, as he mentioned in that in that piece, lots of discussions with him about coastal Louisiana and what we need to do to try to help help restore it and try to save it.

And the good news is that we agree on an awful lot of that.

Right.

He is interested in us dredging, building marshes, building bridges, building barrier islands and so forth.

And we're doing just that.

We've got 3000 square miles of of those kinds of projects under construction as we sit here today, just in Plaquemines Parish alone.

But where we do disagree and where we differ is in the fact that we believe we need to try to be doing that in a more sustainable way.

And so when you dredge to create wetlands and you're not doing anything to fundamentally address the causes of that, what land loss in the first place.

But projects like to build better tear sediment diversion can do just that.

Not only can they build and sustain coastal wetlands on their own, but they can help sustain the projects that we're building in the Barataria Bay and right now through through dredging.

So it's not an either or.

We're not in a situation in Louisiana where we have the luxury to just do one kind of a project, only do barrier islands, only do marsh creation, only do ridges, or only do diversions for that matter.

We've got to have all hands on deck and really throw everything we've got at this problem.

Okay.

Representative Orgeron let me ask you, I. I agree.

And I've worked with with Mitch in doing legislation to move some of the task force members of to adjust basically with the incoming changes.

I agree that we need the full toolbox that CPR offers and those those river diversions and the freshwater introduction, I think, is is a cost that we need to do.

We need to to add those into the toolbox in order to make the solution sustainable.

And, Dr. Bui, we need the best minds at the table, including the oyster fishers.

And I think that they've come to the table.

They've we've listened to them.

And there are oysters incorporated into the master plan in some of the integrated projects and bird reefs.

And we need their expertise in order to build those in an appropriate way.

All right.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hodge.

We're just starting to see the fruits of the labor of some of the past master plans.

So is the master plan on going as was hoped when it began?

I think it is.

I think our overall coastal program is a really, really good spot.

I think, you know, you could you could say we're sort of in the golden age, if you will, of of of the evolution of our coastal program.

We've secured about $20 billion in funding to help implement the master plan over the last 15 years or so.

We've built about 300 miles of levees.

We have rebuilt or restored about 70 miles of our barrier islands along the coast.

We've dredged over 190 million cubic yards of sediment.

That's enough sediment to fill 40 to Superdome.

Just to give you an idea.

All of those projects have benefited over 50,000 acres of our coastal wetlands.

We're building today the largest projects that we've ever built, both a marsh creation perspective.

We're talking about projects that really are game changers and the diversions as well here today.

And so we're on a really good trajectory, I think, in the coastal program.

Representative Orgeron your district has some of the fastest eroding areas of coastline in the nation, actually.

Tell us more about your organization, what it does, restore retreat.

20 years old, founded in 2023, we basically focus on, as you said, the two most rapidly eroding basins, that being the Barataria Basin and the terrible invasion, which also or two of the most productive for both commercial seafood as well as energy resources to fuel the nation.

So 20 years ago it was seen that the people of of Lower Lafourche and Tear Bone and that area wanted to put together a nonprofit to to advocate for large scale projects that would benefit that particular area that estuary make it sustainable.

And that's that's what we're fighting for.

What are some of the projects of the past master plans that you think have worked, done well and are helping the state starting at the the outer ports?

I would say the barrier islands, the first line of defense, of course, the ridge creations, the Spanish bass project.

Basically, I'll see them as as baffles to slow down the the flow of of of river water once it's introduced to to basically compliment and make that full spectrum of of creation of the wetlands for all area that we spoke with Captain Ryan Lambert who is the owner of Cajun fishing adventures in Buras.

He says the threats to our coast are quickly moving their way inland.

Take a look.

Things that that people need to realize it's not coastal erosion.

It's Louisiana erosion 100 miles inland.

Saint George.

Saint James.

Saint James Parish.

They're in jeopardy.

The water is lapping at their door.

And since Hurricane Ida, we lost 106 square miles of land that were protecting us from storm surge is no longer there.

If we don't start putting these things upriver and way north towards Saint John Parish and letting it flow those by us, we don't have a chance.

Mr. Hodges, would you tell us a little bit more about this swamp project in the area and where it stands?

Sure.

So the more part, Swamp diversion is a freshwater diversion in Saint James Parish around Hope Canal that's designed to deliver fresh water and nutrients to a swamp, not one of the largest swamp coastal swamps in America at this point in time that has been deteriorating for the last hundred years since has been cut off of the Mississippi River.

The idea behind the reconnection of the river with that swamp, of course, is to essentially fertilize the swamp, provide fresh water, not stagnant water, water that has nutrients in it that can help stimulate the growth of the cypress trees and Tupelo gum trees that have been deteriorating again for for literally 100 years.

Well, let me keep you here for a second.

We've also heard a lot, of course, about the mid Barataria Diversion project, which was recently approved and funded.

So what is the difference between a diversion like that mid Barataria and the MARPOL project?

Yes.

So there's some fundamental differences in the areas that they're designed to to restore.

Right.

Sort in the Barataria basin.

You've literally got areas that were once land that are now open water.

The land has sunk below the water surface or it has eroded away.

So you've got essentially hole that you need to fill.

And so the mid Barataria sediment diversion is really designed to deliver large amounts of sediments into the basin to help fill those holes, rebuild those wetlands and nurse the wetlands that are already there.

In the case of the Moore Paul Swamp, the swamp is still there.

It's just not healthy, it's not growing and it's deteriorating and eventually will convert to marsh and likely convert to open water.

And so the idea would be to again introduce some fresh water and nutrients to help stimulate the growth of those trees, hopefully grow some new trees in that region or make the area more conducive to planting trees for new growth to help preserve what's already there.

So let's take a look at Mitch Juris.

It's one last time I had a question from him and the risk being too high when it comes to the mid Barataria diversion, they're willing to kill us all on a made Think about 50 years.

We're not going to be here.

They're not going to be here.

So if it was a mistake, it doesn't matter to them what they've sold it to so many people that a lot of people believe that this is the solution.

What's happening now is we're starting to see that tide turn a little bit.

We're starting to see more environmental groups getting together, saying, hey, we want to save the environment, but not at the cost of all the wildlife, all the fish, you know, dolphins, the army Corps of Engineers released an environmental impact statement that said the Mid Barataria diversion would have major adverse impacts on Eastern oysters and Brown shrimp, and there would be a functional extinction of dolphins in the area.

Well, some would say this does more harm than good.

I want to ask all of you to respond to this.

And what do you say about those concerns and the fishermen like Mr. Jurassic, who say it's too big a gamble?

Dr. Bui let me start with you.

I think we have to look at historically what Barataria Bay looked like.

It had much, much more land which the mid Barataria sediment diversions to deliver that right.

It is going to that sediment comes on fresh water.

But the fresh water was there before we impounded and put levies on the Mississippi River.

And so it's using the power of nature, rebuild nature.

And so, yes, there are trade offs.

We have lots of dolphins in lots and lots of places there.

I love dolphins as much as anybody, but They're not an endangered species.

The shrimp are going to move to other places.

We can support fishers to go to where the fish are going to go.

They will move.

And but the other thing is what people are ignoring is how amazing that estuary is going to be.

You're going to have bass, lots of different kinds of bass.

You're going to have other fisheries that are going to create a new industry for people.

And so it's something that people can switch to.

This is once the diversion is up and running and doing well.

So this would make you happy to hear, right, Mr. Haas.

It would.

It would indeed.

I think that.

But to hear Mr. Jurisich though, he's really about.

Ar killing us off.

Sure, sure.

Look, the diversion that we're talking about, the mid-water sediment version is designed to change things in the basin and changes always concerning.

It's always a scary thing.

I certainly understand that.

And we have been very open and public about the fact that the Mid-Barataria sediment diversion will have some impacts within that basin.

But it's really important to keep in mind the context of this basin, what's happened there historically over the last 130 years or so.

It's been changing from from day one.

People are not catching oysters today where they did 50 years ago.

People are catching speckled trout today where they did 50 years ago, or bass for that matter.

One concern in south Louisiana, coastal Louisiana, is that there's this change.

Right.

And so, you know, we talk about perhaps this project being a gamble.

First of all, I completely disagree with that.

Anywhere the river is connected to the coast, we see the benefits of that happening.

But what I can't say is certainly not a gamble is if we do nothing, if we don't do projects like these that are big and bold, that can have the potential to sustain large portions of our coast for a long period of time, we know what will happen then we've been experiencing for the last 100 years.

It's a dying estuary.

It's places on the map that are have been removed because they're literally no longer there.

And it's communities that can't live and work in areas that they have historically.

Okay.

Representative Orgeron.

I no one faults Mr. Jurisich for his position.

I mean, third generation oyster fisherman, we understand.

I mean, his views a little I would call it myopic in that he's not looking at the bigger picture that we all need to look at for sustainability, like both Dr. Bui and and Mr. Haase said said, you know, anywhere that the river is connected, you see lies.

And my particular area in, in Bayou Lafourche, even though we're my hometown, is protected with a, with a levee that protects us from Hurricane Ida and all the the storm surges, we need that storm surge attenuation.

And I would much rather see a freshwater swamp with growing, starting with duckweed and Russells and tallow trees and eventually get into cypress and and oak trees being that storm surge attenuation than just three feet of marsh grass, as it's been for the last hundred years.

That bill you've mentioned that you are a fan of cypress trees, right?

A word about that.

We just finished a Cypress project where we looked at what would happen if we stressed newly planted cypress trees because we're asking questions about restoration and we looked at salinity.

They cypress, newly planted cypress trees handle salinity just fine.

They handle slight increases in temperature like we would see with predicted climate impacts.

But what we do need to be careful of is actually the nutrients come in the Mississippi River is that some of the new cypress trees, if they're very, very young, the the levels of nitrogen that are in the Mississippi River will actually kill them.

So having the mixture of water from a freshwater diversion, plus the flushing of the saltwater, the trees can can can really tolerate very well.

And the coastal master plan, the great thing about it, too, is, is they're planning to put the trees up on ridges, which they need.

That's one of the challenges with our coast for us is they're either impounded in the trees or in water.

So we have no new trees, no young trees at all in some of the swamps, and we don't have any attenuation.

If we if the if the forest is dying.

As you know, we've just been in Spanish past and that's where we film part of this.

We saw things happening where they planted 50,000 trees there.

That's great.

The also the the operational management of of the diversion.

It won't be just a wide open cut.

The words, the CPR.

It will be able to do very effective operational management and control it.

So it's something that we will have a control of as well, which is very important for for managing the area.

Well, thank you all so much.

We have talked enough about past master plans.

Let's discuss now what will happen with the current master plan in the upcoming legislative session.

Here are Stuart Brown, the assistant administration director for the CPRA, on what he expects.

So the master plan is a prioritization effort.

There remains a lot of work to be done in terms of how we solicit the funding, how we engineer and design these projects.

And so the hope is that the funding becomes available to build these projects.

A lot of these projects already have some level of feasibility, some level of engineering design.

Some of them are waiting on on funding.

But as I mentioned before, there are a handful of projects certainly on the risk reduction side that can be really effective, that are are going to be critical to the future of coastal Louisiana.

On, you know, many of these projects have been funded by BP oil spill money and that money is running out by the year 2032 with the master plan being a 50 year plan and the current plan looking forward to 2029.

Is there a worry that money is going to run out?

Absolutely.

Whenever we expand the rest of the BP oil spill money, we're starting to look now the ways to change federally.

Things like Mesa with the Rise Back and the Breeze Act, federal legislation that would remove the cap and allow larger shares of royalty and revenues from offshore energy industries to go towards coastal restoration directly to that.

But if you're looking at that and you know, if you're in that phase of looking at it, you know how long that takes to happen sometimes.

And sometimes it just won't happen.

We keep looking to the future.

One of the bills that I'm going to be running in the state legislature is also looking towards renewable energy prospects that are going to happen off of Louisiana schools and any revenue that we get from those types of activities that, you know, that are right next to the coast would go towards directly.

I'm looking for dedication directly to the Coastal Restoration Fund.

So regardless of where we're getting it from, I would like the coast to take care of the course.

I'd like to find ways to fund it with with the coastal activities.

And Mr. Haase let me ask that question to you.

Is there a concern that this money is going to run out?

Well, absolutely, it will if we don't do anything to backfill it in terms of overall, I think highlighted many of the activities that are going on right now to try to to try to do that in the future.

But it also highlights, I think, the need for the kinds of projects that we've been talking about already that won't just last ten, 15, 20 or even 30 years.

They'll last well into the future, 50 years and beyond, so that we can spend this flush of money wisely.

Now on projects like the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion that could provide benefits well into the future.

How much of the 50 billion has been secured already?

So what I want to start by saying that sort of the coast is I would I would say it's analogous to the federal highway system.

Right.

You're never done with it.

You're always maintaining it.

You're always improving it.

There's always changes that can be made to it.

And so even if we spent $50 billion in the next two years, which would be difficult to do, of course, but if we did that, we wouldn't be done with our coast.

We're going to need to continue to maintain that into the future.

That said, it's a constraint within which we sort of plan and select projects as part of the master plan and to date about one, a little over $21 billion has been secured for those kinds of projects.

And where did that money come from?

A lot of it has come from the federal government and a lot of that has been invested in the greater New Orleans area and the hurricane risk reduction system around that that metro area, the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, or ups of those are all mentioned just a moment ago, which is an offshore oil revenue sharing program with the for how much from BP?

About $8 billion a bit.

$8 billion is going to the state.

Yeah, that's not been the largest amount.

But again, down the road it continues.

You need to secure the money and you didn't know where that's going to come from.

What have you been hearing from your constituents about the current master plan?

First of all, it was mentioned earlier about community engagement.

We've had meetings, local community meetings where people have come in.

CPRA did a great job of explaining the framework of their project selections and then broke up people into individual groups where the voice various concerns, commercial fishermen, you know, just recreational fishermen, a whole, a whole swath of of various people.

So in overall, they're very much in support of it.

And as I said, with storm protection being one of the most important things, they realize that just having our levees that protected us from Hurricane Ida with open water beyond is not sustainable.

We need the the the marsh.

We need the buffer between the barrier islands and the northern extensive levees to help attenuate the storm surge so that overall the the acceptance of the coastal plan is is a positive one.

Representative, do you think this master plan is going to be approved and funded, as Stuart Brown mentioned?

Yes, I do.

I, I hope as previous years that that it will make its way through the legislature without any significant issues and we'll be able to continue on with the progress that we've made thus far in the last several years.

Mr. Haase I agree.

I agree.

I think that, look, there's lots of different things that our coastal masterplan and what we implement in our coastal program, and I would venture a guess that north of 90% of it is almost universally agreed upon.

We need to do these things.

So there's lots of room for collaboration, lots of room for agreement and lots of room for support, I think, for what we're trying to do.

Thank you for that.

Our discussion tonight has laid it all out.

The challenges are huge.

We want to thank those participating Dr. Bui, Mr. McLindon, Mr. Macaluso, Representative Orgeron and Mr. Haase for sharing their knowledge on these issues.

So what do you, our viewers, think about all this?

We encourage you to comment on tonight's show by visiting LPB.org, slash, Louisiana spotlight and clicking on the Join the Conversation link.

We would love to hear from you.

Thank you so much for watching, everyone.

And good night.

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