New Super School Focused on Coastal Restoration Coming to South Louisiana
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It’s a great day for coastal restoration and education! Today, XQ: The Super School Project announced the winners of its Super Schools competition, including a new school in the greater New Orleans area, New Harmony High, which will have a focus on coastal restoration and protection. The 10 winning schools, selected from nearly 700 proposals, will each receive $10 million over the next five years to help turn their dream school into a reality. Because of this award, New Harmony …
Diversions, Old Vegetation and New Vegetation
By Jenneke Visser, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, & Andy Nyman, Louisiana State University This is part five of the series “Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs.” See previous parts on the Sediment Diversion Operations Expert Working Group, Hydrodynamics of a sediment diversion, Geology of land building using sediment diversions, and Building land while balancing historic and cultural effects. In the last 50 years, coastal Louisiana has …
Tagged coastal Louisiana, diversion, mississippi river, mississippi river delta, sediment diversionGulf Restoration Groups Applaud Updated RESTORE Council Comprehensive Plan
Updated plan an important component of largest ecosystem restoration program in U.S. history FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jacques Hebert, National Audubon Society, 504.264.6849, jhebert@audubon.org Emily Guidry Schatzel, National Wildlife Federation, 225.253.9781, schatzele@nwf.org Elizabeth Van Cleve, Environmental Defense Fund, 202.553.2543, evancleve@edf.org Rachael Bishop, Ocean Conservancy, 202.280.6232, rbishop@oceanconservancy.org Andrew Blejwas,The Nature Conservancy, 617.785.7047, ablejwas@tnc.org (New Orleans — August 23, 2016) Today, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration (RESTORE) Council released a draft update to its Comprehensive Plan, guiding restoration of the Gulf Coast …
Tagged comprehensive plan, RESTOREReconnecting the Delta: How Increased Mud Supply Can Improve Sediment Diversions
Jordan Davis, Mississippi River Delta Restoration Science Intern, Environmental Defense Fund Rising sea level and anthropogenic sediment loss is a combination affecting sustainability of deltaic ecosystems. Around the world, major deltas have been experiencing a 44% decline in sediment supply since the 1950s due to construction of dams and reservoirs, including the Mississippi River Delta. A recent journal article, published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, examined the role of fine-grained sediments in deltaic restoration. The authors found that the …
Tagged coastal Louisiana, coastal restoration, Louisiana, mississippi river delta, sediment5 Reasons Why Other States (And You!) Should Care About Louisiana’s Coastal Land Loss Crisis
By Christina Rouse, Restoration Projects Intern, Environmental Defense Fund Outside Louisiana state lines, it’s easy to feel disconnected from the Mississippi River Delta. Spatial distance lends itself to mental distance, and adopting an “out of sight, out of mind” attitude seems second-nature. While other cities and states face environmental problems of their own, make no mistake: the ecosystem services and resources produced within Louisiana provide for not only local inhabitants, but all Americans. As someone interested in environmental issues, I …
Tagged coastal Louisiana, coastal restorationService Day at the Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle
The platform at the end of Caffin Avenue in the Lower Ninth Ward over looks Bayou Bienvenue Wetland Triangle. The Wetland Triangle, which makes up 400 acres of the 30,000 acre Central Wetlands Unit, is where Bayou Bienvenue begins to snake along the wetlands that make up the border of Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes and eventually ends in Lake Borgne. Once a thriving cypress swamp, the Triangle provided the adjacent neighborhood with fishing, trapping, timber and recreation. This important …
Rebuilding and Restoring the Caminada Headland
I have always loved the beach, and now, even more so, knowing that the restoration of critical habitat is near complete on the Caminada Headland! With funding available from criminal fines as a result of the 2010 oil spill, the Caminada Headland Beach and Dune Restoration Project kicked back into high gear in 2015, thanks to over $144 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). The funds, which are on top of the previous $70 million from the …
Building Land While Balancing Historic and Cultural Effects
This is part four of the series “Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs.” See parts one, two and three. “How a large sediment diversion along the lower Mississippi River is operated will determine the success or diminished benefit of such a very costly effort.” Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs Success will be defined by …
Beyond the Basin: Reflections on my Upstream Upbringing
By Christina Rouse, Mississippi River Delta Restoration Projects Intern, Environmental Defense Fund Clang. A knot of rusted chains pulls shut the driveway gate, bringing it closed with a final smack against a worn fencepost. Just like that, my Sunday afternoon visit to our family farm in Clarksville, Missouri ends. After a quick trip home to Saint Louis, it’s time to catch a flight to Washington, D.C. for my internship. On top of a hill, our farmhouse is safe from flooding; …
The Geology of Land Building Using Mississippi River Sediment Diversions
This is part three of the series “Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs.” View parts one and two. Successfully operating a sediment diversion in Louisiana requires that we understand how water and sediment naturally flow in places where the river enters the coast. The basic physical processes are relatively simple. When a sediment-rich river, like the Mississippi, enters an open bay, the flow spreads out and sediments …
Exploring the Hydrodynamics of a Sediment Diversion at Mid-Barataria
This is part two of the series “Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs.” See part one here. Historically, the Mississippi River has periodically overtopped its natural levee and flooded the adjacent wetlands with sediment-laden water. This natural process has been interrupted by the construction of flood control levees, and the available sediment has been reduced by the construction of upriver reservoirs. The proposed introduction of diversions from …
Summer Boat Tour: Multiple Lines of Defense
What better way to spend a morning than on a boat, skirting storms and learning about the wetlands and levee system that protect the Greater New Orleans area? Last week, National Wildlife Federation, partnering with the City of New Orleans on a summer field trip series, led four boats filled with community leaders on a tour of the wetlands along the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) and the $1.1billion Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier. Our enthusiastic participants, including government …
Recommendations for Operating a Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs
This is part one of the series “Building Land in Coastal Louisiana: Expert Recommendations for Operating a Successful Sediment Diversion that Balances Ecosystem and Community Needs.” This series will explore key recommendations for operating sediment diversions as outlined by the independent Sediment Diversion Operations Expert Working Group. The use of sediment diversions, a restoration tool that mimics the natural processes of the Mississippi River to build and sustain land, has been proposed for decades in coastal Louisiana. While we move …
Tagged ReportsRestoration Solutions: Sediment Diversions
The State of Louisiana is advancing two sediment diversions south of New Orleans. These projects are on track to begin construction by 2020 using funding from the BP oil spill. Multiple projects working together are needed to build and sustain land, but sediment diversions are a crucial foundation needed to confront Louisiana’s ongoing land loss crisis. Learn more about sediment diversions in the fact sheet below.
Independent Scientists Release Recommendations for Building Land in Coastal Louisiana
Sediment Diversions Present Opportunity to Rebuild Louisiana’s Coast, Protect against Rising Seas FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Jacques Hebert, jhebert@audubon.org, 504-264-6849 (New Orleans – July 21, 2016) Today, the Sediment Diversion Operations Expert Working Group – a team of leading scientists and community experts with decades of experience working in coastal Louisiana – released key recommendations for operating Mississippi River sediment diversions to most effectively build and maintain land while considering the needs of communities, wildlife and fisheries. Sediment diversions are …