re: Looks like Landry is going to tank the mid-Barataria diversion.

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The river carries about 10% the sediment now as compared to when it built the delta.

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This is a much-parroted talking point that is at best an uneducated take. It’s like arguing you would pass on a winning Powerball ticket because last month there was a much bigger winning ticket.

The Corps takes 15-20 million cubic yards of sand out the river below Venice every year to keep the channel open. That’s JUST Southwest pass, not any other location in the delta or elsewhere in the river or any other channel across the coast.

Sand comprises about 20% of the river’s total sediment load, with finer silts and whatnot comprising the remaining 80%. So you have tens of millions of cubic yards of material moved by the river every year that is not dredged.

Last year, CPRA’s biggest dredging year ever, they managed to move 22 million cubic yards of sediment COASTWIDE. So what does all that mean? Every year, the Corps digs a hole in one spot refilled by the river annually equivalent to the myriad of holes CPRA had to dig from lake Calcasieu to Breton Sound and in the Gulf for their biggest year ever.

There’s plenty of sediment in the river.