re: Gating canals in houma area

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How about we balance the benefits from the canals? Has to be in the trillions, no?

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Define benefits. You mean monitory benefits to the land owner and state, I assume. Would you deduct the affects of erosion from those benefits? If you made a trillion dollars but caused severe land loss over the next 50-60 years, would you still count it as a benefit? What happens when people start getting wrecked by hurricanes because our marsh is no longer able to help protect the mainland? Where does all that fit into the benefits?
This is also overlooking the canals that were constructed in the pre permit era. As well as the god knows how many more that were built illegally after permits become mandatory.

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Effects of canals ripple across the wetlands
Eventually, some 50,000 wells were permitted in the coastal zone. The state estimates that roughly 10,000 miles of canals were dredged to service them, although that only accounts for those covered by permitting systems. The state began to require some permits in the 1950s, but rigorous accounting didn’t begin until the Clean Water Act brought federal agencies into play in 1972.
Researchers say the total number of miles dredged will never be known because many of those areas are now underwater. Gene Turner, a Louisiana State University professor who has spent years researching the impacts of the canals, said 10,000 miles “would be a conservative estimate.”

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