Corps Lays Out Vision for Louisiana’s Now-Closed MRGO

The Army Corps of Engineers has unveiled a sweeping $2.9 billion plan to restore the environmental damage caused by the construction and operation of the now-closed Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet.

The plan includes a new freshwater diversion near Violet; restoration of cypress swamp in wetlands adjacent to the Lower 9th Ward, Algiers and Chalmette; protection of shorelines along the eastern New Orleans land bridge; and restoration or nourishment of wetlands along Lake Borgne.

If approved, the project would take 10 years to complete, with construction beginning as early as 2012. It would restore, nourish or protect about 92 square miles of wetlands and land.

Also included are three new recreation areas: a boardwalk and picnic shelters at the northern end of Caffin Avenue that would also be used for wetlands education programs; a walking and bicycle path and picnic area along the new Violet diversion; and a pier, walkway and picnic area incorporating the Hurricane Katrina memorial at Shell Beach in St. Bernard Parish.

Each recreation area also would have solar lighting, parking and bathrooms.

Construction of the projects would be staged, with the projects providing most protection from storm surge being built first, according to the plan.

The plan, which Congress ordered the corps to develop after deauthorizing the MR-GO as a navigation channel in 2007, still must clear a variety of major hurdles, including whether Louisiana will be required to pay 35 percent of the cost of most of the projects.

Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Garret Graves, the state’s senior coastal official, in August notified the corps that the state thinks the federal law authorizing the restoration plan requires that the federal government pay 100 percent of all costs.

Corps officials threatened to hold off on the restoration plan until the state agreed to the 35 percent split, Graves said. But then they backed off, and they included a statement in the written plan explaining the disagreement.

Graves said that’s an important concession because the state and the federal government can now offer the restoration plan as a project that could be financed with fines and mitigation costs that BP and other responsible parties will pay for the Macondo oil spill.

Information from: The Times-Picayune