Live from the Gulf: Still No Urgency on Protecting the Marshes

Nicolas Loris / July 20, 2010

Today, a team of experts from The Heritage Foundation left port at Myrtle Grove, Louisiana to tour marshes, wetlands, estuaries and lakes from Venice to Grand Isle, and spoke with officials leading the cleanup and protection efforts. One message was made extremely clear: The lack of urgency from the federal government remains.

The Heritage team witnessed workers collecting boom saturated in oil and other boats maintaining and placing new boom. The edges of several marsh patches were visibly stained black and although some areas already showed signs of recovery, had Governor Bobby Jindal’s proposal for building barrier islands been approved from the beginning, the oil would not have even reached these marshes. Though the Sand Berm E-4 has now been authorized by the army core of engineers, Governor Jindal said,”That first month we lost, we could have created 10 miles of land.” The decisions to delay or reject rock jetties, sand berms and other protective measures are inexplicable to local workers and residents, especially when the benefits expand beyond preventing the oil from spreading deeper into the marshes.

The urgency is necessary because not only will building barrier islands protect the state’s wetlands, but they can also act as a line of defense for hurricanes and bad weather. These projects can prevent longer-term coastal erosion and large patches of marshes from simply disappearing. BP had paid for the rocks for the jetties but they were never used. (more…)