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Governor of Louisiana Declares State of Emergency as State’s Coastline Disappears

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posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:35 PM
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LOSING GROUND

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency on April 18 based on the continuous, rapid erosion of the state’s coastline. The goal of the declaration is to hasten the federal permitting process in order to get coastal restoration projects started and bring nationwide attention to the issue.

“Decades of saltwater intrusion, subsidence and rising sea levels have made the Louisiana coast the nation’s most rapidly deteriorating shoreline,” WWNO’s Travis Lux told the NPR Newscast unit. “It loses the equivalent of one football field of land every hour.”

More than half of the population of Louisiana lives on the coast, and the land is critical to the energy and maritime industries as well as trade. The pace of erosion is quickening, with the governor writing, “More than 1,800 square miles of land between 1932 and 2010, including 300 square miles of marshland between 2004 and 2008 alone.” He continues to write in the declaration that if no action is taken right now, within 50 years, “2,250 square miles of coastal Louisiana is expected to be lost.”

Lux also told NPR that the governor is hoping that the declaration will enable coastal projects to proceed: “The state has a plan to implement more than 100 restoration and protection projects — like rebuilding marshes and barrier islands — but some of those projects are getting slowed down by federal environmental permits.”



Wow half the population lives in coastal region, that's a lot of economic and personal upheaval. 300 sq miles in four years and "one football field per hour" is purdy progressive. EPA slowed permits, well that's no surprise I guess and I wonder how the current EPA cuts will effect this?

Part of me wonders if because of the nature of that coastline, with major river flow/ delta forces, storms and of course rising water, it would be better for residents to plan an exodus over time, because this seems like a daunting task in infrastructure building, costs, cooperation and permits.



THE PERFECT STORM

Unfortunately for everyone involved, the Louisiana coast is the eye of a perfect storm for land loss caused by multiple factors, including climate change, natural river delta patterns, damage from oil and gas industry projects, coastal changes caused by the loss of marsh and mangrove ecosystems, and hydrological mismanagement in general. With all of these factors in play, one of the worst problems becomes managing the crisis as each player in the drama seeks to avoid responsibility and shift the blame elsewhere.

The projects the governor is focusing on are part of the “Master Plan,” a 50-year, $50 billion plan that was approved this month by a unanimous state panel. According to The Times-Picayune, the plan “relies largely on money from settlement of the 2010 BP oil spill litigation to speed restoration of coastal land and wetlands and protect them from hurricanes.” The state of emergency is intended to force the federal government to cooperate with the Master Plan, possibly providing funding — and perhaps overlooking its environmental flaws.


Yea the accountability and blame game and reluctancy to take responsibility will stifle the ventures, especially with so many contributing factors. The oil co's working with env groups will probably be slow as well. This is why the gov made this national emergency claim, to speed things up.

Approved 50 billion?! Wowzie, but spread over 50 years I guess it makes sense, now that it has been approved. The state claims BP litigation will help with costs, but as of 2015 the award was only 18.7 billion total for five states, 6.8 billion for La.
Louisiana has a 2billion dollar budget deficit this year also. Maybe the state should consider legalizing cannabis down there.


However, it’s not entirely clear that the Master Plan will work. The Climate Change Law and Policy Project of the Louisiana State University Law Center argues that it won’t, for several reasons:

The Master Plan proposes to slow the loss of land using river diversions and dredging; if possible, this will raise only land at the edge of the coast to sea level, or slightly higher, and not interior land that will be flooded in the future as the land subsides.
Building land at the edges of the coast will not prevent inland property from losing elevation; because how far above sea level something is determines how high the flood risk is, the risk will not be reduced by slowing land loss.
The Project opposes dredging and sediment pumping to build wetlands which would need to be repeated and would leave a huge carbon footprint.
The Project thinks the proposed river diversions are unlikely to work and should be abandoned.
The Master Plan also proposes massive levee projects which will cost billions and have to run through huge areas of open water, causing massive environmental harm; it is unlikely to be built at all, even though the success of the plan rests on it. Since success is predicated on this one unlikely piece of the Master Plan, it should be scrapped unless they can prove it will be executed and workable.

Instead, the LSU Law Center makes these recommendations:

The first priority should be “the maintenance of the post-Katrina levee and pumping stations.”
“In the longer term, required lifts for the levees will run into hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The Project agrees with the Master Plan idea of “putting the sediment dredged from the Mississippi River into the wetlands along the river to provide a wave buffer for the existing levees.”
“Other low cost projects such as closing old canals by pushing the spoil bank into the canal may also make sense.”
The critique of the Master Plan from the LSU Law Center ends with this quote regarding the grim reality of the situation, particularly in light of climate change:

“In the long term, the state must acknowledge that large areas of the coast cannot safely support communities and businesses. Surrounding communities with ring levees or elevating houses makes no sense if they end up as islands in the Gulf on every high tide. If the federal government withdraws most of its funding from disaster relief, as conservative foundations are urging, or reduces the subsidy to the National Flood Insurance Program, getting people out of harm’s way will have to become the first priority for coastal spending in Louisiana.”

Source

What a mess and this may wind up being one of the largest coastal restoration projects in history. It will be interesting to see how all this comes together but for now if I was a resident, I'd be moving further inland. I do hope efforts will work and people are not forced to leave their homes but I would certainly begin preparing for the worst case scenario.

More reading



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:40 PM
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Geez... it's only gotten worse since 2015 - more information in this old thread...

Speaking of, this was walkable land (black) and not-walkable 'land' (red, aka water/swamp) back then:



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:40 PM
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Perhaps Trump could also build a sea wall so we could keep LA. Perhaps the Mexicans would pay for that as well!!
edit on 22-4-2017 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)


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posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:42 PM
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a reply to: waftist

How about spending that 50 billion to relocate and choose better areas to live in instead of band aiding a problem that will exacerbate in the future.


We all know it's going to come from the tax payer anyway. Why pay to keep things as they are when they can only get worse and more expensive? Just setting yourselves up to keep that "aid" money flowing instead of doing something more reasonable.


PS glad all these companies can come in, # everything up and have us pay for it. I didn't kill the coastal creatures, big oil did.
edit on 22-4-2017 by Antipathy17 because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:46 PM
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a reply to: Greven

Thanks for the link and work there Greven and yea the pace is scary. I hope personal issues with climate change can be set aside to some degree(as far as cause) other than agreeing it is happening and affecting the area. With so many entities involved, red tape and appeals will probably slow any significant progress.

It will be interesting to hear the President's response to this and this may become a pinnacle example of compromise between such opposed perspectives and insitutions for the good of the people……maybe?


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posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 05:48 PM
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I know it is not a popular view, but it is hard to argue with mother nature.

It would behoove the people to leave the area, just as it would be ideal to move away from active volcano (but there again, people try and "live" near these things).

Some things cannot be stopped, and tinkering with them will have other even more negative consequences.

Sounds like an awful lot of money to be moving dirt around, in various different ways.


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posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:02 PM
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originally posted by: olaru12
Perhaps Trump could also build a sea wall so we could keep LA. Perhaps the Mexicans would pay for that as well!!


What a dumb comment.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:05 PM
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50 billion for something nature is gonna break again...

dont live by the coastline.. problem solved



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:11 PM
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originally posted by: Jiggly
50 billion for something nature is gonna break again...

dont live by the coastline.. problem solved


The wrath of nature is not confined to coastlines.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:15 PM
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Well if the global warming alarmists are to be believed, why would anybody want to put to money into preserving the coast line?

You would be fighting a battle you cannot win.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:24 PM
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The governor should really make some consultations with geologists before spending a penny or two on something that might not work. It says in the link that the governor talks about rising sea levels, and of course there is also a thrust in that link about GW. Louisiana is in an area of post glacial isostatic depression, and it should follow that it's not the sea that's rising, but that the area is sinking. The great ice age glaciers of the far north have been reducing for thousands of years, and as they do the northland rises, while the southland sinks, simply put. The rising of the land in the north is called post glacial rebound.
Any possible solution then, should need to take that into serious account.

edit on 22-4-2017 by smurfy because: Text.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:28 PM
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a reply to: Antipathy17




What a dumb comment.


I know, GET TF OVER IT!
edit on Rpm42217v29201700000042 by randyvs because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:28 PM
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Around Florida the beaches are usually only to be found on the "barrier islands". Where there aren't barrier islands there are usually mangroves, or human stuff. Where there aren't mangroves, there are usually seawalls, or all the demolition concrete chunks stuff gets dumped heavy. Haven't heard peoples hair on fire about the coastlines down here, and we might just have an inch or two more coastlines than LA.


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posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:30 PM
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Lousisiana's coast has always been eroding. New Orleans sits below sea level which just isn't a good place to be for long-term survival and it was like that before anyone was worried about global warming. This is a pre-existing problem.

What people seem to be missing here is that climate changes. That's what it does and will always do, and in this case ... the coastline was eroding. And it will erode even if we're dumb enough to keep living there right up until the Gulf washes away our front lawns.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:34 PM
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a reply to: olaru12

The Gulf Coast of Louisiana is BELOW Sea Level . Salt Water Intrusion will Continue no matter what the State tries to do to Prevent it .



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:42 PM
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a reply to: waftist

i guess everybody has changed their mind about why it's sinking. tens years ago it was because it's a river delta and because of oil production. here i'll let this article.


By reconstructing sea level rise and sediment accumulation over the past 8,000 years, the researchers showed that large portions of the Mississippi Delta's basement land are in fact stable and not the reason for the sinking.

"If that were the whole story, there would be major consequences for Louisiana, because subsidence of Earth's crust is a natural process that remains beyond human control," said study leader Torbjorn Tornqvist of Tulane University.

The new study suggests, instead, that compaction of the most recent sediments, near the surface, causes the land to subside. The young delta sediments, rich in water and heavy, are pressing down and squeezing the water out of the older sediments beneath and allowing the surface to sink, Tornqvist explained.
The Real Reason Louisiana is Sinking


and another, from 2008.

But Windell Curole, whose family has lived here for five generations, can't find the beauty in it. He sees tragedy. "When my grandfather was a boy, there were cotton fields here," he said waving his hand in a 180-degree arc that took in mostly water. "But in just 50 years, it became marsh, then it became open water."

The culprit: subsidence of soft marsh soils, combined with coastal erosion.
Part 2: Southeast Louisiana is sinking under its own weight



the new governor is just looking for some of that federal money.
edit on 22-4-2017 by hounddoghowlie because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:49 PM
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Do people not read the article or even the quote?

Looking at IgnoranceIsntBliss and hounddoghowie here, really... there are multiple reasons for what is happening, as said:

“Decades of saltwater intrusion, subsidence and rising sea levels have made the Louisiana coast the nation’s most rapidly deteriorating shoreline”

I count three different reasons. There has been no change in them. It isn't just sea level rise.

Stop reading what you think you see and read what is actually there.
edit on 18Sat, 22 Apr 2017 18:51:27 -0500America/ChicagovAmerica/Chicago4 by Greven because: (no reason given)



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:54 PM
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a reply to: hounddoghowlie

The OP quoted that there's a multitude of reasons why the coast is failing, that was among the reasons.



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:54 PM
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originally posted by: Zanti Misfit
a reply to: olaru12

The Gulf Coast of Louisiana is BELOW Sea Level . Salt Water Intrusion will Continue no matter what the State tries to do to Prevent it .


I know, I spend a lot of time in NO on business. And also plenty of time chasing specs and Reds out of Cypremort.
Fishings Great!!



posted on Apr, 22 2017 @ 06:56 PM
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a reply to: waftist

I think it would be wise to use any emergency funds to help people relocate, sea levels are only going to get higher.




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