re: Thoughts on Diversions and the Coastal Master Plan

It doesn't help that our new AG was not long ago the attorney defending O&G companies from having to repair the damage they caused to the coast and were contractually obligated to replace....

It's my understanding that you can't sue the Army Corps for projects done for flood protections.

It's basically hopeless.

Here's why:

People in south Louisiana want to live on concrete slabs. Living on piers is for poors. So they pour concrete on grade. When the flood comes, the people living on slabs cry to the government to save them. The government comes along and puts a levee around the community and pump the water out.

That's when this happens:



The image above is elevation where higher areas are lighter and lower areas are darker. You can spot the leveed communities by the subsidence hastened by the dewatering of the hydric, coastal soils. They think the levees protect them from flood, but when storm surges hit, the ring levees are filled to the top with flood water.

These places are where the sediment is needed most, yet we very well can't start dumping sediment on top of these communities. Spring floods are the very thing that sustains and builds land, yet that's the very thing these people want to restrict. They're doomed to have their slabs crack and sink into the mud, while their ring levees fill with water after every major storm.

People want to live on concrete slabs in coastal Louisiana, that's the problem. You can't fix stupid.

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Saying that reminds me of the documentary the stated something to the affect of, The Plow is the reason we drive around cars. Basically explaining that the invention of the plow is the reason humans were able to completely transition from hunter gatherers to farmers, which in turn led humans to invent thing and build cities and eventually they automobile.

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Connections:

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So IMO you saying Louisiana's sole problem is people want to live on slabs is humorously stupid.

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Sorry you're stupid enough to live on a slab in south Louisiana.

I guess you didn't understand anything about the ring levees and de-watering the soils.

But ultimately, it's people's fear of the very flood waters that built this land that is the problem. Slabs have just exacerbated the problem since 1927.

If you want to live in this dynamic, depositional environment, you can't pretend like you're living on the Western Prairie. Ranch style houses are just dumb down here. Building ring levees around ranch style houses is even dumber. Just look at the data I provided, it's science.

For the cypress/tupelo swamps to thrive, you need cyclic flooding. They don't regenerate when it's completely flooded all of the time. They need to include a way to shut off the water if they are serious about building it.

There are also lots of cypress/tupelo swamps all throughout the delta.

Didn't realize that the MRGO was built as a diversion project? Thought it was for commerce.

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Didn't realize that the MRGO was built as a diversion project? Thought it was for commerce.

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It wasn't a diversion. Just was pointing out that land/marsh plants were able to grow out to the end of it. I think dredging would work in most areas along our coast.

We like to overanalyze/overstudy things when in reality they will probably work.

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This is part of the reason why you have a hard time finding any active trespass cases from the marsh.

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I know of a couple, one in Lafourche Parish system in particular. It may have been settled in May, not sure. I can point you to some warning letters as well, sent to the address where the boat was registered, they got the registration numbers and looked it up in the WLF system somehow.

The point is, there are active cases, but it's handled locally away from public eye.

Enough of off topic...

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I don't think we should be paying to fix erosion caused by O/G canals.

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Not the whole problem or the issue at hand, the river flooding these areas and not being able to deposit sediment there anymore and erosion from that is what's on the line here. Are the O/G canals making erosion worse, yes, but are they the only factor, no.

I am just discussing what the levees have done and how we can go about helping the coast against the problems they have caused. They helped save money on flood damage, but have crippled Louisiana's coast through not giving it the sediment and fresh water that it relied on prior to the levees to fight salt water intrusion and erosion.

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If we spend a couple million dollars to restore a bunch of their land just so they can turn around and get more money for their leases, who exactly have we helped?

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Thing is, you have to help these land owners to help the state out as a whole, if you pick small portions here and there you putting a bandaid on a problem too large for it.

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I don't have the answer but at some point people are going to catch on that they are funding the restoration of Charle Drake Fetcher's duck lease.

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So we shouldn't do it because this guy may be an a-hole and the diversions will help him out? What about the other acreage that the same project will help out that are owned by nicer land owners or the state? We should just let it all waste away because it will help out a few people that no one likes? This is where I think diversions take a lot of the complaining out, they will help an area as a whole, thousands of acres over time where dredging is just a spot where they dump the sediment.

You have to take assessors map and throw it out the window and just look at the coast as a whole. It does not matter who the owners are, whether they are private or state or state leased lands from private owners. That crap doesn't matter, people either want to fix the problem or they don't. If we do nothing then guess what, our children's children or however far down the line will say, "I wish my ancestors would have fixed the problem when they had the chance."