There’s good news for southeast Louisiana residents today that President Trump’s administration is chopping off some three years of the permitting process for the planned Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project.
August 2019 has been set as the deadline for the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies to issue permits for the big project to build new land along the Mississippi River in Jefferson Parish.
This, hopefully, will bring solid land to one of our coastal areas most affected by our disintegrating coast along the Gulf of Mexico.
And it should build up one of the most productive areas of southern Louisiana.
The project should send rich Mississippi River water to make our southeastern coastline in that area solid once again. The permits originally were not scheduled until the year 2022 and the new permits would give us a couple years of extra build-up if everything goes as planned.
Many of our state political leaders have been camping out in Washington, D. C. this week.
This incidentally is done every year at carnival time to take advantage of our nation capitol’s attention to Louisiana at that time.
It is scary to view the possible future coast we may have if the plans our state has proposed for building up our coast do not go into place or are unsuccessful.
You may see our coastline really heading northward.
The slow federal permitting process has been one of the problems in the past. What could have been done probably some time ago still has some time to go.
The Mid-Barataria project is a main part of the plan to restore the southeastern Louisiana coast which has deteriorated far too much.
Unless it begins restoration soon, it will be more difficult to do it.
There are many other projects in our coastal restoration plans that need fast attention also. Unfortunately, the federal government is not fast in issuing permits to state projects. We hope they can do this one soon.
The plans have been drawn up to restore the Louisiana gulf coast to a solid one. But we need to proceed soon on our efforts to accomplish it.
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