Every year, up to 35 square miles of Louisiana coastline disappear.
If those miles were concentrated in one large land mass, that means an area the size of the City of Miami vanishes under water every 365 days.
"The problems we're facing now, I think, are going to be a harbinger of what the rest of the world will be faced with if the sea-level rise scenario that some people have predicted is true," said Bill Good, administrator of the Louisiana Coastal Restoration Division. "The lessons learned here are going to be very significant beyond the borders of Louisiana."
There is hope, however, in the deltas of Louisiana, and in marshlands across the country. Thanks to a powerful piece of federal legislation known as the Breaux Act, progress is being made to slow the annual loss of wetlands.
Created by Congress in 1990, the Breaux Act may go down as Louisiana's most significant piece of legislation since the Louisiana Purchase.
The act is named for Louisiana Senator John Breaux, a long-time legislator who was the primary author of the bill that created the act. The Breaux Act, also known as the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA), calls for up to $70 million to be made available for restoration projects each year. Of that, Louisiana alone is eligible for up to $40 million, $5 million of which may go toward planning.
Of the $30 million remaining in the national budget, half is spent by the Secretary of the Interior, through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for coastal wetlands conservation projects in ecosystems in any coastal state. The other half goes to the director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for grants for conservation projects in any coastal state other than Louisiana.
Louisiana gets the lion's share of these funds because losses there represent up to 80 percent of the total wetland loss nationwide. Coastal wetlands in Louisiana account for more than 3.3 million acres, more salt marsh wetlands than any other state in the country. Clearly, this is an important habitat, not just for Louisiana, but for the entire country.
"Through the Breaux Act," Good said, "we estimate between now and 2050 that some 73,000 acres will have been preserved."
As of May 1997, 80 Breaux Act projects had been selected from six priority lists in Louisiana. Earlier this year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the awarding of $10 million in Breaux money to programs in 20 coastal states. Since 1990, the Service has awarded more than $43 million in 24 coastal states and one U.S. territory for the conservation of more than 63,000 acres.
In Louisiana alone, the act will be responsible for saving an area the size of Newark, New Jersey. Through other state and federal actions, Good estimates another 50,000 acres can be saved.
In just the past year, when the first construction projects were completed, Good said the annual rate of marsh loss has decreased and that they've actually gained 6 percent.
Interest in saving the wetlands has been universal, he said.
"It's not just an environmental issue, it's a classic environmental situation in which the habitat we're talking about at this point is human habitat, and we're losing our place to live," Good continued. "People realize this is something we've got to do or have people pack up."
Wetlands are restored, created, and protected through a grocery list of projects: sediment diversion, sediment dredging, sediment capture, existing wetland protection and enhancement, barrier island restoration, freshwater diversion, outfall management, hydrologic restoration, hydrologic management of impoundments, marsh management, and erosion control.
It's interesting to note that the problem has become so great that Good says the usual rancor that exists between industrial interests and environmentalists is not present in Louisiana.
One of the greatest users of coastal wetlands in the state is the oil and gas industry, which has been at the forefront of restoration efforts.
"As we lose marsh, more and more of their infrastructure becomes exposed to the Gulf of Mexico," Good said. "If they have to retrofit their equipment to handle Gulf weather and change infrastructure for transportation, their costs are going to go up tremendously. We're kind of all in the same boat."
For more information on restoration efforts in Louisiana, contact Katherine Vaughan at 504-342-1375, or Bill Good at 504-342-6028.
