re: Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser letter on cancellation of $3 billion Mid-Barataria Diversion

This diversion was a joke from the start and thank god it was terminated! Anyone to say that the great people of Plaquemines "get what they deserve" ie:die is down right inhumane and assinine!

Who r u...Chip Klein or something?

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This diversion was a joke from the start and thank god it was terminated! Anyone to say that the great people of Plaquemines "get what they deserve" ie:die is down right inhumane and assinine!

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What’s the name of your fishing boat, Captain?

What about the lsu lake project?

So what your saying is you dont necessarily think it was a good thing...you just pissed because some political friend gave you a BS contract and now your company is not getting the "deal" you were promised!

I love the fact that they killed it even more now! All this was..was a money grab!

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Can anyone who knows more tell me if Nungesser is correct that the Diversion would basically destroying Barataria Bay,

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The extra freshwater would lower the salinity to the point where shrimping and oyster fishing would be over in a big chunk of the area. Especially further north and closer to the diversion’s location. So the people who currently hold oyster leases in that area or that shrimp in Barataria Bay are against it because now they’ll have to travel a further to fish.

The dolphins will adapt and move to more saline waters along the coast.

But none of it is “ruining Barataria Bay”. It would be returning the area closer to the state it would be in if the Miss River wasn’t cut off from those swamps and marshes via the levees. A lot of what’s now marsh or open water around Barataria Bay had oak trees and cypress swamp 50-100 years ago before the land eroded away due to being cut off from river sediment and oil companies digging access canals all through the area. All of that led to saltwater intrusion that killed off the natural swamp vegetation and sped up the land erosion.

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and that there are solutions - barrier islands, ridges and berms - that are ready to roll right now?

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I don’t know how quickly they’d be ready to roll, but faster than building the diversion. Problem is that with dredging to build land, its a never ending battle and you will have to keep dredging for eternity and its still hard to keep building land at the pace that it gets eroded away. Restoring the area to a more natural salinity level would promote vegetation growth that helps hold the land together better.

Plaquemines Parish shrimpers and oyster fisherman who are politically connected is why the diversion got killed. The project’s ballooning budget is a bullshite excuse. The diversion was being funded through feds and BP oil spill money. Now the state is going to be on the hook for reimbursing the feds for hundreds of millions already spent, plus whatever other unpaid contractual obligations they’re going to owe to contractors who were hired to work on the project.

Correct - the project had ballooned a couple of times and JBE threatned to cancel the project unless the BP trust agreed to allocate more money to cover the increased cost. Cancelling this project will cost the state a lot of money. Going from a 3 billion dollar construction project that did not cost the state taxpayer a penny and would increase tax revenue by hundreds of thousands of dollars in multiple areas over a 4 or so year period - to now having to probably re pay the 600 million spent and likely the BP trust allocating larger chunks of the money at their disposal to the other gulf states for projects that those states are willing to construct. This is a massive failure by Louisiana leadership.

Well - that is good news. I'm almost certain that there will be lawsuits, though. A lot of companies have had people, equipment, and materials down there for the better part of a year and a half. The small group that I had been dealing with were billing weekly to cover recurring costs for being there, and I am sure that others were as well. Those invoices were all getting paid, but the lost revenue that would have been gained from actually performing the work is what these companies are all trying to calculate right now I have to believe. Just seems like a colossal waste - although not taxpayer dollars - good luck getting that trust to award us with any other project of significance. The lost tax revenue for New Orleans, the communities south, and the state has to be very very high.