re: Louisiana Coastal Erosion.

quote:

---

how exactly would it be the fault of the oil companies?

---

you can quantify the effect in 2 ways: direct removal which would be direct digging of channels and intrusion/erosion/habitat loss that was precipitated by the construction of those channels. the Houma Navigation Canal, Calcasieu Ship Channel, and MRGO are all large scale examples of what thousands of small oilfield canals have done to ecosystems. they create direct pathways for saltwater to kill off brackish and freshwater plant species, which held together the soil...they also introduce much higher energy (waves) and velocities (currents) of water to areas which used to be 'calm.' since those areas now have nothing holding their soil together, they erode and disappear. the low end of estimates from several studies of land loss caused by oil companies are in the range 10% of all land loss since 1930s or so. thats what is easily directly provable. high end estimates are up to several times larger.

I would think that trying to move a large body of water in ways it does not want to be moved would have a much larger effect.

true but you can't say it was only their fault

agreed. i thin the lawsuits were always aimed at creating settlements. if they would have went further, it could have been a circus if the oil companies would have said, "ok how much loss have we created and what's that cost us?"

the other principle which the suit referenced was the old legal idea (and i am no lawyer so i will butcher this) that a landowner/stakeholder upstream cannot implement changes on a landscape that would increase his downstream neighbor's flood risk (at least not without compensation). it was my understanding the levee board was going to try and argue that the o&g companies increased the flood levels seen by the levees through their alterations of the environment (through digging channels or through lack of maintenance) between the levees and the gulf.

quote:

---

I would think that trying to move a large body of water in ways it does not want to be moved would have a much larger effect.

---

no doubt. i think O&G companies are only fractionally to blame. i dont think anyone, including the legal proceedings claimed they were solely to blame.

to be honest, i really dont have an opinion on the lawsuit. i think it was a bit misguided, would have created legal nightmares and opened way more cans of worms than anticipated, but i also think the o&g companies have largely been held unaccountable for the changes (in whatever amount) they have caused.

to give an example of why the lawsuit was misguided and not well thought out:

currently, when the state wants to restore some area of marsh or a barrier island, chances are an oil company owns it. the oil companies, up to this point in history, have always been very accommodating to restoration efforts on their property (free right of access, right of ways, no legal hurdles for land rights etc.). should this suit have gone through, restoration would have gotten exponentially more expensive overnight because every project on private o&g land would be paying out the arse for land rights or to forcefully acquire access because every oil company would have gone and told the state CPRA to frick themselves in retaliation for the suit.

You're right you can't blame coastal land loss solely on the oil companies, but their digging of canals and pipelines have not helped, and have sped up the natural coastal erosion processes already taking place.

Basically what happens is they create fresh water intrusions carrying a lot of nutrients from fertilizer run off. The nutrient rich fresh water causes marsh grasses to have shorter roots and weakens there protection from storm surge. Then you also have salt water intruding with fresh that kills fresh water plants and essentially having the same effect. There really seems to be no correct way to fix it right now.

As for the law suit, it is looking to hold the oil companies responsible for damages they have caused. When they are permitted to dig they are legally responsible for mitigating their damage up to the ecological value of the wetland, meaning it's not just and acre for acre mitigation. Up to now a lot of oil companies have not been doing that.

I'm not a lawyer, so some of my info could be a little off. but I do have a good bit of background in environmental regulations.

O&G companies will not desert Louisiana as long as there is oil and gas here. That is the biggest argument against the suit though, and the main reason why people are against it.

maybe misguided was wrong word. i think that from the highest levels to the lowest levels, nobody thought about all the implications or talked to each other before hand. Barry (SLFPA E) claims to have alerted Graves (CPRA) before the suit was filed, but its clear form the rushed nature that the two agencies never had detailed talks about all the cans of worms they would open, as i described in a previous post. they should have at least had a serious joint plan of action and accompanying legislation to address to future hurdles they were creating for themselves by filing the suit. i also dont understand why they couldnt use state AD rather than private lawyers (but i am no politician or lawyer). also, should it have gone to trial, i dont even think the top scientists could pinpoint an exact value for land loss or the amount of mitigation required for that loss. it would be a very broad range at best. all these factors contributed to make it look like a money grab. they should have had all their ducks in a row first, then filed.

quote:

---

they should have had all their ducks in a row first, then filed.

---

This couldn't be more true. I support the lawsuit in principle, but they just seemed so not ready for what they were getting into with it. They went about it wrong IMO

the main problem is the greenland ice melt. you cant stop that and it will raise all the sea levels. once the sea levels raise you really cant rebuild something that is under water.