around the Southlands: Unleash the beast!
The river will be released — though federal officials sound lukewarm
Happy new year, Southlanders! I’m excited to announce this newsletter will be expanding in 2023. Check out the details at the end of this email.
I’m operating under an adjusted post-holiday schedule, and this year’s first field guide essay will arrive next week. For now, I wanted to debut a new feature: a roundup of stories I’m following around the South.
The river will be released
[ TLDR: A controversial project intended to restore Louisiana’s shrinking delta got the green light from federal officials—despite their apparent skepticism. Expect construction—and litigation—to commence within months. ]
In late December, just before the holiday calendar dead zone, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave the green light to a longstanding plan to unleash the power of the Mississippi River. The hope is that by diverting water and mud through the levees, some of the state’s fading marshland can be rebuilt.
It’s a controversial plan, in part because the blast of freshwater will push many of the species we eat further out into the Gulf. The margins on seafood are already thin; for many shrimpers, spending more money on fuel is untenable. The Corps of Engineers has noted that given the future changes to the delta, local seafood prices are likely to go up in the coming years whether or not we build the diversion—but that the diversion will deliver those price leaps decades earlier than if the project weren’t built.
I wrote about the diversion plan last year for Hakai Magazine. As I note in the piece, this been called the largest ecosystem restoration project in U.S. history, which sounds accurate to me. Still, from another point of view, the diversion’s output seems underwhelming: the Corps of Engineers used a model to analyze the project and found that if we don’t build the diversion, 240,000 acres of wetlands will disappear in Barataria Bay and near the river’s mouth over the next half-century. If we do build this diversion, and it works as planned, 230,000 acres will disappear.
It’s a net loss either way, and, as I put it in Hakai, the difference is “a mass of mud as big as two good-sized airports.” The sad fact is that the delta is disappearing too quickly to be saved by this project, or even a whole suite of diversions—which is what the state of Louisiana hopes to build over the next several years.
I recently spoke with Ehab Meselhe, the engineer who built the Corps’s computer model, and he made clear that even this was just an estimate. There were key variables that he was unable to include: the amount of sediment the river carries has been declining for years, he noted; but since he does not know the cause and he does not know if the decline will continue, he had to leave this trend out of the models. Meselhe, to my surprise, sounded skeptical of the diversion. “There aren't many engineering examples in history where we interfere with the natural system and made it better,” he told me. “The less we tinker around with nature, the better.”
It’s worth noting that the Corps of Engineers, too, seems skeptical—or at least quite circumspect. The diversion will be owned and operated by the state of Louisiana; the federal role here is just to ensure the infrastructure does not violate any laws and does not mar the river’s navigation channel. In an official press release, the Corps’s New Orleans district commander noted that the agency takes “great care to neither endorse nor oppose any project when administering our regulatory authorities.” This was simply a rubber stamp.
Perhaps the Corps is playing politics, hoping not to draw the ire of the fishing industry. I note, though, that a few years ago, the Corps’s seniormost hydraulic researcher told journalist Tyler Kelley that he believed the diversion’s effects range from “‘moderately beneficial’ to actually accelerating land loss”—so maybe the skepticism runs deeper.
The drama isn’t over. Leaders of local fishing industries have vowed to sue, and Billy Nungesser, a lead contender in this fall’s gubernatorial election, is a harsh critic of the project. Expect the state to move quickly, then. Officials have already made an offer on the needed land; construction should begin by March.
There’s no doubt that this project will mark a historic change in humanity’s relationship with this river. Still, it strikes me that, whatever the diversion accomplishes, we need to think even bigger. In our conversation, Ehab Meselhe noted that when people discuss subsidence, they tend to express the problem in terms of how much land has been lost since the 1930s. The implicit suggestion is that we should try to restore the delta of that era.
“I don't know if that is—not only if it is feasible,” Meselhe said, “[but] if that's even the right way to look at it. Because the coast has always been meant to be a dynamic system.” To survive in this delta long term—to survive on this planet, more generally—we need to learn how to embrace a state of change.
want to see it?
+ When I explored the disappearing delta for my forthcoming book on the Mississippi, I traveled with Richie Blink of Delta Discovery Tours—who is, I note, a major proponent of the diversion. It’s an excellent tour.
further reading
+ Hundreds of ancient, sacred Indigenous sites are at risk of washing away as the delta subsides [Times-Picayune]
+ Louisiana officials share drafted updates to the state’s massive plan to save the coast… [WWNO; a disclosure: my wife created the maps and graphics for this plan, and I am incredibly proud of her]
+ …which, sadly, contains almost no mention of carbon emissions [Times-Picayune]
around the Southlands
Amtrak to the Gulf
Later this year, for the first time since Hurricane Katrina, passenger rail will connect the Mississippi coastline and Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans. Green travel to lovely settings? Yes, please. And now Amtrak is discussing extending the rail line as far as Miami.
Maurepas mud
Lake Maurepas, one of the vast, sparkling estuaries that ring New Orleans—a fishing hotspot—has been relatively unscathed by the nearby profusion of industry. And that’s precisely why the industrial gas company Air Products is seeking to build a “blue hydrogen” plant near the lake.
Hydrogen is a key fuel for industrial processes, and “blue hydrogen” is meant to be carbon neutral because its waste gases are stored underground, rather than released into the air. Many critics are skeptical of the technology, but blue hydrogen plays a prominent role in Louisiana’s climate plan—the only such plan in the Deep South
The lack of existing pipelines in Lake Maurepas makes this an appealing carbon-storage site. Air Products’ plan, though, has sparked local outrage. Livingston Parish passed a moratorium meant to halt the company’s exploratory drilling, but in late December, a judge overturned that moratorium.
Immigrant influx shuts down island park
A recent influx of Cuban migrants briefly shut down Dry Tortugas National Park, a collection of coral reefs and islands off the coast of Florida that is only accessible by seaplane or boat. The migrants—part of a massive wave arriving throughout the holidays—set up camp inside a nineteenth-century fort.
A quick note on the expansion of Southlands: while this newsletter will remain anchored in its customary nature-and-travel “field guide” essays, in 2023 I’m hoping to include more news roundups like this, plus Q&As, both written and via podcast component. I’d love to hear from you about what kind of content would be useful. I’m also always interested in collaborators who can help me cover other parts of the South! My inbox is always open by replying to this email.
The part where Meselhe says that most engineering efforts don't end up making things better just reiterates my frustration with other big projects being pushed here in Houston, namely the Ike Dike. I've seen first hand what engineering did to the Everglades and the un-doing of all of those things has caused multiple issues and billions of dollars (trillions?) sometimes wasted for little return. I'll be interested to see more of what you share about the delta project in the coming year.