Coastal restoration, hurricane protection booming economic sector

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Southeast Louisiana coastal restoration, hurricane protection are new , booming 'water management' economic sector, Data Center says

By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Southeast Louisiana’s economy, long dependent on the oil and gas, shipping and tourism industries, has a new major player, according to a report released Sunday morning by The Data Center: water management.

The term refers to coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects, as well as the management of water in interior areas, such as New Orleans’ efforts to manage its sinking soils and to improve the capture, storage and removal of stormwater, according to the Coastal Index, produced by the Data Center, the new name for the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

The water management sector’s recognition as a separate segment of the local economy may be new, according to the report, but its impact on the economy has been around for years, and has dramatically increased since Hurricane Katrina, with the investment by Congress of close to $15 billion in improvements to the New Orleans area levee system and interior drainage projects.

And the sector is about to see another burst of activity, thanks to expected spending on coastal restoration projects if the state receives the billions of dollars it expects as its share of fine money and natural resource damage mitigation payments that will be paid by BP and its drilling partners in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and oil spill.

The report’s authors used an economic formula called a “location quotient” to measure how concentrated the water management sector already is in Louisiana, and found that it ranked at 1.3 in 2013, meaning there’s a greater share of water-related businesses in Louisiana than the average elsewhere in the United States. That means the industry already is “exporting” its services to other locations in the country, with the revenue from that outside business returning here.

This new water management sector has already joined the oil and gas, shipping and tourism industries as a major player in the state’s economy, according to the report.

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