Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Water & the Environment Category
Click here to view all posts

Dams are thwarting Louisiana marsh restoration, study says

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 29, 2009 at 5:47 am

From the New York Times:

Desperate to halt the erosion of Louisiana’s coast, officials there are talking about breaking Mississippi River levees south of New Orleans to restore the nourishing flow of muddy water into the state’s marshes.

But in a new analysis, scientists at Louisiana State University say inland dams trap so much sediment that the river no longer carries enough to halt marsh loss, especially now that global warming is speeding a rise in sea levels. As a result, the loss of thousands of additional square miles of marshland is “inevitable,” the scientists report in Monday’s issue of Nature Geoscience.

The finding does not suggest it would be pointless to divert the muddy water into the marshes, one of the researchers, Harry H. Roberts, said in an interview. “Any meaningful restoration of our coast has to involve river sediment,” said Dr. Roberts, a coastal scientist.

But he said officials would have to choose which parts of the landscape could be saved and which must be abandoned, and to acknowledge that lives and businesses would be disrupted. Instead of breaking levees far south of New Orleans, where relatively few people live, Dr. Roberts said, officials should consider diversions much closer to New Orleans, possibly into the LaFourche, Terrebonne or St. Bernard basins.

Read more from the New York Times by clicking here.

June 29, 2009 · Filed Under Levees, Water & the Environment

Comments

Leave a Reply