Surprisingly, there seems to be some leftover money from Jundall's $240 billion sand berm boondoggle that Louisiana plans to use for Shell Island restoration. Not surprisingly, there remain serious concerns about BP's committment to clean up Wisner trust land. It's also curious that there is a split in the Corps of Engineers' preferences for ownership of the new land that will be created.
It's more than worth reading the entire story for many more details on the restoration and Wisner trust.
The Army Corps of Engineers has finally unveiled a long-awaited $446 million plan to rebuild the Caminada shoreline south of Port Fourchon and the mostly disappeared Shell Island to the east of Grand Isle.
It calls for a radically different approach to coastal restoration, one that involves using sand deposits miles offshore to restore a sand dune that would reach 7 feet above sea level along the Caminada shoreline, and deploying a 12-mile pipeline to move sand from the Mississippi River to rebuild the large barrier island to 6 feet above sea level.
Though the two projects have already been authorized by Congress, the costs are nearly double what was originally budgeted. As a result, the corps says it will move forward only on the Caminada shoreline restoration for now, leaving Shell Island for later.
Louisiana’s top coastal official, Garret Graves, says the corps already should have begun construction of the two projects, and that the rising costs are the corps’ own fault.
“Here we are approaching four years down the road for something that should have been done in months,” said Garret Graves, chairman of the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. “This is the corps’ process, the corps’ attorneys, being incapable of responding to this urgent coastal crisis we have in Louisiana.”
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Equally unclear is whether money will be available. Congress has been loath to finance new corps construction projects in recent years.
Graves said that despite the corps plan to delay construction on Shell Island, the state will begin construction of part of the project, using money from the separate federal Coastal Impact Assistance Program and a portion of the remaining $120 million given to the state by BP to build sand berms to capture oil from last year’s BP oil spill.
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strong>While both projects are authorized under legislation aimed at restoring the environmental services of land lost to erosion, the Caminada project would also increase protection from hurricane storm surges for the sprawling Port Fourchon offshore oil service industry base. It also would reduce damage to interior wetlands from surge.
But Lachney said the corps remains concerned about two potential obstacles to beginning construction of the Caminada project: a question about who will ultimately own the land created by the project; and pollution along the project shoreline remaining from the BP oil spill.
Much of the land on which the project will be built is owned by the Edward Wisner Donation Trust, which was donated in 1914 to the City of New Orleans under a 100-year trust agreement.
Much of Port Fourchon, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port’s onshore operations; facilities owned by Chevron Oil, and a number of other oil and gas production facilities all sit on Wisner land.
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Lachney said senior corps officials have recommended that the property for construction of the dune and wetlands be bought, with mineral rights remaining with the original owner. But she said the corps’ New Orleans District officials are recommending instead that Wisner and the other owners grant easements that would assure the project would be protected.
Cathy Norman, executive director of the trust, said she also is in favor of an easement, rather than sale of the land.
The BP oil could be more of a problem, Lachney said.
“We cannot acquire any property if it is contaminated,” she said. “Any property, before we acquire it for a project, would have to be cleaned.”
Wisner officials have been trying to get BP to clean its property since the first oil washed ashore weeks after the April 20 accident, Norman said. At the moment, cleanup operations by contractors working for the joint BP-Coast Guard oil spill cleanup program are on hold because of nesting birds, she said.
But Joel Waltzer, an attorney representing the trust, said BP officials seem to be waffling on how clean they plan to make the Wisner property.
“We’ve been told now that the removal is stagnant and that the Unified Command seems content to leave oil on the beach, against our will,” he said. “To the extent any of this jeopardizes critical restoration projects, that needs to be changed.
“The standards for cleanup are attenuating over time, appear to be getting weaker, and either the Coast Guard or the state needs to make sure the cleanup is done to the satisfaction of the corps,” Waltzer said, “because without restoration, there won’t be a beach, and without a beach, there won’t be an interior wetland separating the Gulf from Houma, not to mention Port Fourchon, a critical asset to the state and the nation.”
Graves agreed. Last week, he complained to a congressional committee about the slow pace of cleanup efforts and their potential to delay a raft of restoration projects.
“The reality is that there’s oil in the Gulf today, and we likely will see oil washing up from these submerged oil mats and other sources for several years,” he said. “To say we can’t do restoration anywhere where there’s oil would mean we wouldn’t build restoration projects for years in coastal Louisiana and that’s obviously not an option.”
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The corps is seeking public comment on the Barataria plan, available on the web at http://www.lca.gov.
The corps will hold two public meetings on the Barataria restoration plan from 6 to 8 p.m. on July 26 at Woodland Plantation, 21997 Highway 23, in Port Sulphur, and from 6 to 8 p.m. on July 28 at South Lafourche High School, 16911 East Main St., in Galliano.
Comments or questions on the draft also can be sent to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District, Attention: William P. Klein, Jr., P.O. Box 60267, New Orleans LA 70160-0267, or by calling 862-2540, or by fax to 862-2208. Comments will be accepted through Aug. 8.
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