Funding Terminated For Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion

The state of Louisiana and the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group (LaTIG), the group charged with approving funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement for coastal restoration projects in the state, have announced the official termination of funding for the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion (MBSD). The near $3 billion diversion, originally approved for funding in 2023, had been the largest project in the state’s coastal restoration plan.

The state and the New Orleans Engineer District, the permitting agency for the project, have been inching toward deauthorizing the project since early this year.

The New Orleans District suspended its permit for the project this spring, citing efforts by the previous state administration, which “deliberately withheld information” for the project’s environmental impact statement. The proposed diversion, which would’ve been located on the west bank of the Mississippi River near the Plaquemines Parish community of Ironton, would have funneled sediment-laden water from the river into Barataria Bay.

Col. Cullen A. Jones, the former commander of the Corps’ New Orleans District, informed the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) of the permit suspension in a letter to Gordon E. Dove, CPRA chairman, on April 25.

“This suspension is based on the state’s actions (including failures to act or to obtain compromise), its public statements and positions, new information and potentially changed circumstances since permit issuance,” Jones stated.

When Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry took office in January 2024, his administration began a review of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project and held a meeting with the Corps on February 26 this year to discuss its findings and concerns.

“[I]t became clear that a last-minute, out-the-door approval to proceed in construction of the MBSD was prematurely made by the prior administration,” Dove wrote to Jones on March 7, recapping the February 26 meeting.

Dove explained lawsuits remained pending in both federal and state courts, local permits were not obtained, mitigation was not complete and engineering on the salt water wedge and impact to the MBSD was not performed prior to the start of construction.

A wedge of salt water from the Gulf of Mexico migrates up the Mississippi River during low water periods. Due to low flow in the river in 1988, 1999, 2012, 2023 and 2024, the Corps constructed an underwater “sill” to block the upriver creep of salt water, which threatened freshwater intakes above the site of the diversion.

In that March 3 letter, Dove also referenced a report dated June 3, 2022, that “does not appear to have been disclosed to the public nor considered by all necessary persons within the Corps.” According to modeling contained in that report, the state’s maintenance costs, including dredging to maintain flow through the diversion, could have reached $50 million a year.

“The federal regulations for environmental impact statements have requirements for furnishing all relevant information and supplemental information,” Dove wrote. “We have read the MOU (memorandum of understanding), regulations and permits issued, and we believe we have a duty to disclose this FTN modeling.”

The New Orleans District’s original decision on the permit concluded that the projected benefits slightly outweighed its projected harms. In light of the newly unearthed report, Jones wrote that the “balance of benefits versus harms may be implicated by the state’s current positions and new information.”

Funded in large part by fines assessed to BP following the Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill in 2010, the state of Louisiana had already spent in excess of $500 million on the project toward the end of former Gov. Jon Bel Edwards’ second term in office.

Another concern was modeling that showed flowing that much water into Barataria Bay would significantly lower the salinity levels there.

Jones’s letter of suspension cited negative impacts “such as increased water levels and tidal flooding in communities within 10 miles to the north and 20 miles to the south of the diversion outfall, increased storm surge impacts, particularly on communities not protected by levees, greatly reduced abundance of brown shrimp and eastern oyster and cultural and economic losses that it could cause,” and the “functional extinction” of several subspecies of bottlenosed dolphins.

A diversion at the site is still under consideration, but at a much lower cost and significantly reduced water flow. Other options are said to involve using dredged sand from the Mississippi River, conveyed via pipelines, to build land.