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February 11, 2022
In Louisiana, rising sea levels, more intense storms, and high tide flooding threaten coastal ecosystems and livelihoods of people in those communities. But Louisiana has been both planning for coastal resilience for a long time - and putting those plans into action. In this episode, Dan and Emma explore the benefits that wetland restoration can have for the coast and the role that wetlands play in the planning and implementation of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan. They are joined by Natalie Snider from the Environmental Defense Fund and Dr. Denise Reed from the University of New Orleans.
Show notes:
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Episode Transcript:
Dan: Hello, and welcome to the climate conversation. I'm Dan Bresette, executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. And today I'm joined by familiar voice to our longtime listeners, my regular co host, communications associate, Emma Johnson. Hi, Emma.
Emma: Hi, Dan. It's great to be back with you in season three. I'm excited for all the stories that we're going to tell this year. Last episode you and Senior Policy Associate Amber Todoroff talked with a member of our advisory board Dr. Rob Young about a proposed seawall project in Charleston, South Carolina. Go listen to that episode if you haven't already, really interesting conversation, and great to hear from Rob who has so much expertise on coastal resilience and working on managed retreat and all those other topics. And so today, we're heading back to the coastal south. But this time we're going to Louisiana.
Dan: That's right. And building off the conversation with Rob, it's now time to get into the details on how the state is putting plans into action to make their coastlines more resilient. And we're going to be focusing on one piece of this work specifically. And that is what's called nature-based solutions.
Emma: At EESI, we use nature-based solutions as an umbrella term to describe restoring and emulating nature in order to increase human ecosystem and infrastructure resilience to climate impacts. So this includes green infrastructures like green roofs on a city building, and natural infrastructure, which is projects that use existing or rebuilt natural landscapes. So for example, protecting and restoring mangrove trees can help reduce flooding, protect shorelines and filter out pollution. These solutions often result in environmental, economic and social co benefits, such as when the city saves money on water treatment plants because people conserve ecosystems upstream of its water supply, keeping the water clean. So there are solutions like this in place all over the world.
Dan: And there are ways to make coastlines more resilient, including built infrastructure like stormwater catchment and drainage systems and nature-based solutions like wetlands for Louisiana, which will unfortunately continue to be battered by storms in inundated with rising sea levels and high tide flooding for the foreseeable future. Officials will need to use every tool in their toolbox to increase the resilience of communities and ecosystems. Nature based solutions will be part of the overall work the state is doing to create more resilient coasts. And an important nature-based solution in the region is wetlands.
Emma: Louisiana's wetlands have been in decline over the past 100 years, in part because natural processes of changing river flows but much more because of human activities. Wetlands were dredged to set up oil rigs and build canals and this altered the hydrology of the region leading to even more weight loss as some wetlands became open water. Since the 1930s. One quarter of the state's wetlands representing an area the size of Delaware have been lost.
Dan: Looking ahead into the 21st century, the biggest threat to wetlands won't be dredging. It will be climate change. Sinking lands and sea level rise, eating away Louisiana's wetlands, turning them into open water. To learn more about how climate change will be affecting coastal Louisiana. I'll turn things over to Natalie Snider, Associate Vice President of climate resilient coasts and watersheds at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Natalie: Louisiana has been ground zero for the impacts of climate change in the US, both from the perspective of our coastal land loss crisis and the amount of wetlands that we lose every year, but also in the amount of hurricanes that the people of Louisiana are impacted by. You can think that there's been two category fours in the last consecutive years with Laura and Ida. 2020 saw five landfalls and Louisiana. So the amount of impact happening is enormous in Louisiana. So Louisiana is already feeling the impacts of climate change, and those impacts are only going to grow. Even with climate mitigation, those impacts are baked in for Louisiana, including increased sea level rise, putting communities at risk, increasing the amount of land loss that we are facing, increasing changes to the environment, and will also include more intense storms. We've already seen enough storms to cause a lot of trauma for the people of Louisiana. You know, increased intensity and frequency of hurricanes is very detrimental to the to the future of Louisiana.
Dan: Protecting Louisiana's coastal ecosystems is vital. 75% of Louisiana's commercial fin and shellfish species depend on wetlands for habitat and food. The fish that live in wetlands fuel the state's recreational fishing industry, which generates over $3.1 billion each year and supports 34,000 local jobs. Overall, if you were to quantify the value of the ecological systems in the region, they would be worth up to $4.7 trillion.
Emma: What you just highlighted there, Dan is how restoring wetlands isn't just about preserving this one habitat. Wetlands in Louisiana are places of cultural importance for local communities and a driver of the regional and even national economy. We can't forget about the people who live around and depend on those wetlands because that relationship is also shaping how the state is thinking about restoring and using wetlands.
Dan: That's a great point. Let's turn it back to Natalie to learn more about how wetlands affect the ways people in coastal Louisiana live, work and play.
Natalie: Yeah, the wetlands are really important to the people of Louisiana, it's part of our culture, it's part of our heritage. It's where people live, work and play. And so it is sportsman's paradise. There's huge fishing communities that rely on the wetlands, to feed their families and as their livelihood, people are very connected to wetlands in Louisiana more so than I think in a lot of other places, and depend on them for their livelihood. So we see I mean, a wide variety of types of wetlands restoration in Louisiana, for everywhere from oyster reef restoration, barrier islands, marshes, and swamps. And so you have this wide variety of ecosystems that are being restored. And what you see is, you know, if you take hurricane Ida, for instance, that hit last year, not only did those restoration projects survive, and did what they were supposed to do during the storm, but they also helped protect communities that were behind them. And so these wetlands are really important part of our multiple lines of defense. And as we build out more wetlands, it will help with the resilience of those communities. So one example of a project is the Caminada Headlands. And it was a barrier island dune system with Marsh Back Bay, that was re-created, still one of the largest single projects that we've done so far in Louisiana. And it's located right near Port Fourchon, which is an incredibly important hub of activity and economic development. And then it also is in front of smaller communities along the bayou and Terrebonne parish. And so that's a clear example of how investing in these areas will not only make them more resilient, the ecosystem more resilient to sea level rise and storms, but the communities behind them, it's more thinking about that holistic approach and using the multiple lines of defense, and so that every piece of the ecosystem is important. And so we continue to want to fund and build out the wetlands, the oyster reefs, the swamps, all of those pieces that then provide that barrier. Number one, they can be more sustainable to the future of sea level rise. And so we can fight off those future impacts. But also they can help build that risk reduction to the impacts of storms. I think by focusing in on using natural infrastructure and nature-based solutions, Louisiana is leading the way and how to build that coastal resilience that that's needed across the nation. One of the most exciting projects coming up is just now finishing with all its permitting and engineering design this year. And that's the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion. So for decades, scientists have said that by leveeing the Mississippi River, we have actually increased the amount of land loss that we are experiencing because we took away the sediment source that builds those wetlands naturally. And so these summit diversion projects are super exciting, because they're first of its kind. And they will reconnect the Mississippi River to its floodplain, thereby putting all of the dirt you know, the muddy Mississippi, letting all that sediment go into the wetlands and rebuild wetlands naturally. And so it is probably one of the world's single largest individual restoration project, you know, over a billion dollar project that really will restore tens of 1000s of acres of wetlands. And also do it in a natural way to where it's, you know, less energy, very efficient use of funding and then really putting Mother Nature back to work for us. So not only is Louisiana lead the way in wetlands restoration and coastal planning, so the Louisiana's coastal master plan, the latest iteration of 2017 is kind of a world leader in how to bring science together and bring public engagement together to develop, you know, a real 50-year plan of how to tackle these enormous issues. And really with a reliance on wetlands and wetlands restoration as the center of that. And this year, Louisiana, has an unprecedented investment of almost $1.3 billion just for this next year, in building coastal resilience. And so Louisiana really is leading the way, nationally and internationally on these on these issues.
Emma: Now it's time to dive into how Louisiana plans to go about protecting coastlines and restoring ecosystems. And that means learning more about the state's coastal master plan with one of the experts who helped develop it. Dr. Denise Reed.
Dan: Denise is a professor at the University of New Orleans, and she's an internationally renowned expert on coastal marsh sustainability, with over 35 years of experience on coastal ecosystems. She's also a member of NOAA’s Science Advisory Board. And Denise has helped Louisiana develop all of its coastal master plans, which makes her the perfect guest to tell us how the 2023 master plan has taken shape. Denise, welcome to our podcast.
Denise: Thanks very much, Dan.
Emma: Can you start off Denise by explaining what the coastal master plan actually is? And what are some of the main goals of this almost 100-page document.
Denise: We've had plans for restoring coastal Louisiana for you know, since 1990, really, but I think the coastal master plan that we have at the moment is in practice really very different. It kind of emerged after Hurricane Katrina, you know, when there was this renewed sense of urgency about doing something about the coast and actually combining ideas about restoring ecosystems with protecting communities and reducing flood risk. And so in that somewhat chaotic time, if you like, of the mid 2000s, there after Katrina, the idea of having a comprehensive plan for the coast kind of emerged, and the legislature grabbed onto it. The planet itself has emerged as kind of evolved a little bit over the years. And in the early plan, the 2007 plan, it was very strategic in nature, very like some of the previous restoration plans we've had for the coast in the 90s, with like to do this here and do that there, and this kind of thing needs to be done. And what happened in Louisiana was that there was this great influx of money after Katrina, and you know, the state budget was doing really well. And there was a lot of pressure on state officials to invest in this or invest in that invest in the other one and to the credit of state officials at the time, they said, There's got to be a better way to do this, we have to be able to use all that we know about the coast, to try to come up with a real plan about what we're going to do not just strategic ideas, but actually projects that people can put on the ground and people can fund. And so you know, that's really what the plan is about at the moment. And or has been for the 2012 planning for the 2017 plan. It's about saying, Okay, this is what we're going to do to restore the coast, this is what we're going to do to reduce risk to local coastal populations in a fairly specific way. So then, when Louisiana goes asking for money, it's pretty clear what kinds of things we're going to spend it on. That has really been the heart of the plan for 2012 and 2017, and will still be there in 2023, this idea of what projects do we really need to do to help out on the coast? In addition, I think in 2023, you know, there'll be an expanded set of thinking about change on the coast and what people should expect. You know, we have this great challenge with this concept of restoration that people think it's about putting it back the way it was, well, it's really not about putting back the way it was. It's really about preparing for the future, and preparing for a sustainable future. We have to make decisions, the masterplan team has to make decisions about what kind of assumptions we're going to make about sea level rise, what kind of assumptions we're going to make about storms, things that nobody can possibly know. And so I think that we really want to explore an array of features. Change is inevitable change is going to happen. And we have this opportunity as we implement these projects in the plant to kind of steer that change one way or another. Although, of course, you know, we're never quite sure how the future is going to play out. In essence, it provides a kind of pathway for the future for coastal Louisiana, and for those interested in coastal Louisiana, to see where we can go, not just focus on where we've been.
Dan: Denise, you mentioned the 2017 master plan. And one of the five objectives listed in the 2017 master plan is cultural heritage and Louisiana is steeped in cultural heritage. How do you evaluate how a project affects cultural heritage? And could you give us an example of one of these projects that connects to wetland restoration?
Denise: Yeah, well, that's a really important aspect of this plan, right? That it's not about a kind of benefit cost analysis of what's the most efficient way of building so many acres of wetlands or building a levee or something like that, it really tries to look at the things that make coastal Louisiana special and actually the objective so you point it to the objectives in the 2017 plan. The first four objectives have been there since the 2007 plan. And so you know, these are these have endured, you know, every time we begin a new planning process, stakeholders say Okay, let's touch these objectives again, are they still the right objectives? And they are, we actually added another one to the original four in the 2017 plan about the working coasts, recognizing that people who live on the coast, you know, need livelihoods as well. And some of those are connected to the natural environment. But not all of them are, we have really important ports and industries down on the coast that that are an essential part of, of how we think about the coasts and how it works. So this cultural heritage one is interesting from a scientific point about how we can understand how aspects of the coast that have been going on for centuries can endure in some way into the future with all the kind of threats and things that are going on. So what we do to look at this one, particularly for traditional fishing communities, which is one of the kind of you know, iconic things about coastal Louisiana, if you like, is we got a group of folks who really know the coast and know the coastal communities together to identify these traditional fishing communities for us across the coast and say, Okay, what kinds of natural resources do these communities rely on? And so what are they actually going out and catching? Are some of them based on crawfish? Or some of them based on shrimp, you know, which ones are interested in, in oysters? And where do they do they currently kind of go fishing? What is that connection between the community and the ecosystem? How does that work in terms of harvest and things like that. So what that allows us to do is to is to look at our models and our projections of what's going to happen into the future. And we look at two things we look at, is that community in the placement that it is now? Where it is now, is that still going to be a viable community into the future? Are we putting in the necessary, you know, risk reduction measures or other things that will help that actual community still be there? And then what we do is we look at what resources will that community in that place be able to access into the future? Will they still be able to access the same kinds of good habitats for brown shrimp or good habitats for white shrimp or other kinds of organisms into the future as well. And of course, we have projects in the master plan that change that ecosystem in just the same way that we have projects in the master plan that reduce risk that these coastal communities. Change is going to happen one way or another. It's not about keeping it the way it is now. And so we're trying to take our understanding of the dynamics of the ecosystem and how the projects will modify that into the future and say, Okay, what does that mean, for these traditional communities, so we might be able to, for instance, rebuild some wetlands in an area, which means that they still have some good habitat for some of the organisms that they rely on, which if we didn't take that measure, you know, essentially, the Gulf would be coming in. And you know, there wouldn't be any wetlands to kind of be that juvenile habitat for that for the organisms that are important to them. So we think about this from both sides, we think about this in terms of what we can do in the natural environment. But also, what does it mean for the community as a whole, because you have to have both.
Emma: And we've been talking a lot in this episode about the benefits of wetlands and nature-based solutions like them. But we also know that nature-based solutions alone won't be able to solve every challenge in coastal Louisiana. So can you talk about how these solutions work in tandem with gray infrastructure or relocation or other efforts that Louisiana has underway?
Denise: Well, it takes everything right. Obviously, as you know, we have, you know, we tend to hit the headlines when there's a big hurricane. But you know, for those of us down on the ground, and kind of hit the headlines every day, as we as we see the coast kind of, you know, gradually changing in front of us. I've only lived here for 35 years, but there's been a lot of change in those 35 years, we've also done a fair amount of restoration in those 35 years, too. So we've tried to make progress in some areas. So how does this all work together? Well, we have to have places where people can live. And for the most part, people live in in South Louisiana, on the higher lands, you know, I live kind of in the wetlands, if you like but not actually out there in the marsh. There are higher pieces of land associated with how the Mississippi River built the coasts, and that's where most people are. And then between those areas, there are these really vast areas of coastal wetlands that have been deteriorating and that's where the kind of essential valued parts of the ecosystem occur and all those wonderful things that we get from that. And so because of this kind of difference in how well this pattern if you like, we've crossed the coast of how where people are, and where the natural environment is, then we can actually do things in the natural environment to make sure that we have sustainable wetlands in in Louisiana that will survive some time into the future. And we can emphasize where we invest in restoration, in places where those wetlands have the opportunity to work synergistically with the other activities that we need to do in order to protect the people who live on the ridges. Now the other thing here is that we've also been really quite innovative in how we think about some of our risk reduction measures, there's a really long, either 70, 90 mile levee system that is in the coastal master plan, it's under construction at the moment, but it's not a levee system that has the kind of walls everything off and pumps the water out. It stays open until a hurricane comes. And so we're then able to just close it off to keep the water out when the storms coming. But for the rest of the time, the water is coming in and out. The wetlands are natural, they're producing, they're functioning just like wetlands on the outside of the system are. And so we're able then to take restoration measures on the inside to promote the ecosystem. And on the outside of things like that, to promote the ecosystem. So that we can get these ecosystem benefits, we can have them close to where we live. And we can also get some of that additional benefit of say, wave dissipation, when water levels get high and the waves build up, then as they move through wetland areas as they move through particularly forested wetland areas, then that can kind of damp down the waves a bit. And that dampening down the waves means that those levees behind those wetlands, the ones that are essentially between me and the storm, those waves and are able to wash over top of the levee in quite the same way. And they also kind of take some of that energy out. And so they don't erode the front of the levee the way that they would otherwise do. And so if you if you talk to the people who built the levees, you know who manage those, they would way rather have an area of wetland or forested wetland in front of their levee system, then open water even if the only other open water is only a few feet deep. This is such a huge problem. In coastal Louisiana, such a lot needs to be done. But you have to kind of start somewhere and you have to think about where you're going to do things. And so this idea of making these two approaches work together is as much not about what you do, but where you do them and how you do them in relation to one another.
Dan: Denise, you said something earlier in your comments about maybe wetlands restoration doesn't mean what it sounds like it means. And that makes me think that when you're restoring a wetland, you probably have to ask yourself some questions like, What are we going to restore this wetland to? What are we what is the purpose behind the wetlands restoration? And I'm curious as you're implementing the plan, how you balance the different goals and objectives of wetland restoration, and how you, you know, ensure that the wetlands, once it's restored, is going to be something that's sustainable into the future.
Denise: Yeah, great questions there. So one of the things about coastal Louisiana is it's huge, right? It really is just really difficult to get your head around. We're very lucky in that we have a really diverse system, too. And so we're not focused on we've got 100 acres here. What does this 100 acres meant to look like? We kind of focused on the larger kind of gradients across the coast, there will always be fresh areas, because it rains, that there will always be salty areas, because the Gulf of Mexico is there. And so we focus on the kind of balance between the two. But we don't try to keep the boundary between the fresh and the salt fixed because you can't do that. It's got to be a dynamic environment. You've got to have some exchange going on. We kind of let the processes, we fix the processes and then the processes tell us something about what the wetland’s going to be like and so if we get some fresh water back into our estuaries, then near where we put that freshwater in at the head of the estuary, just like in Chesapeake Bay or something like that. It's going to be fresh closer to the ocean, it's going to be saltier, so we don't have to over overthink that. We do focus on is sustainability and making sure their investments that we that we are recommended in the coastal master plan actually are likely to hang on for some time into the future. Basically, when we use dredged material to build marshes, there's a set of calculations that are made on how high it needs to be. And we now are very fortunate and we have a lot of information about how the coast is sinking in Louisiana, because we're on a delta. And so we're sinking and we've got lots of wetland soils that also kind of consolidate, we can take that into account. And we can take sea level rise into account to we can say, Okay, well, we're not going to build the marsh in the weekend, we're not out there with a dredge doing it, we're doing this in the in the modeling environment, we're not going to set the elevation of the marsh so it's going to be wetland straight away, we're going to set it a little bit higher. And then over time, it's going to kind of subside lower and sea level is going to rise. And over the 50 year planning horizon, our goal is to make sure that we still have wetlands in that last decade. And of course, some of our other tools that we have in our toolbox when it's not just about dredging up dirt and placing it in creating a wetland, we can move water around to and so we can move water and sediment out of the Mississippi River. And that helps the sustainability of marshes into the future, it can naturally build small delta areas as well. We use all the tools in our toolbox if you like to create the structure for the coastal system, and the processes that maintain that structure into the future.
Emma: You've already mentioned a little bit that the next iteration of the plan is coming out in 2023. What can you share with us about what will be new in this version or how it's continuing to shape the direction of the state's coastal resilience work?
Denise: Well, it's all it's all still coming together. You know, the idea is, is that the plan will be submitted to the legislature in early 2023. It'll be out later this year, or very early in 2023 for public comment, and nobody knows what's in it yet. So there's nothing really to share. But you know, we have been sharing some of the results, in public meetings with the city board about what the future will look like, if we don't implement the plan. That's always the baseline for thinking about this. Every time we do an analysis like this, we're saying, Okay, if we don't do anything else, if we just finished building the projects we've got in the pipeline at the moment, and we don't do anything else, what is the coast going to look like? And I'll tell you, you know, depending on what the sea level rise is, like, you know, it could look pretty grim. But we're optimistic that we've got some really good projects = that we can put on the ground, that can make a difference. But and those differences are what will be will be shown when we've been through this project selection process. So we're kind of at that crux point at the moment, to try to work out what's in the plan. But we know that the plan will chart a course of action for the future. You can look at the coastal master plan in Louisiana, and you can tell what kinds of things we are going to do. This is not a kind of black box that people are investing in. This is a plan that people are investing in, that is built on the solidly on these five objectives is based on science and everything we know this coast information that we've developed over decades and decades and decades, probably one of the most studied deltas in the world, that we're leveraging all of that science to show people, we need to do something about coastal Louisiana. And if we can get some resources, these are the kinds of things that we're going to do. And I think that really has been one of the most important things about the plan, showing how it's not just building levees in cities, the kinds of things that we really had to do after Hurricane Katrina. It's about appreciating the value of this massive natural environment, and thinking about what value that can give to us for the next 15 years.
Dan: Well, Denise, you've got your work cut out for you. What a monumental effort, and I think it's fascinating to hear a little bit about how it's evolved over time, and how you know, the 2023 plan will build on the 2017 plan, which built on the 2012 plan, which built on the 2007 plan. So Emma and I wish you all the best of luck and we're really, really looking forward to checking out the master plan and seeing how it evolves when it comes out and presented to the state legislature early next year. Thank you so much for joining us.
Denise: Thank you for the opportunity.
Dan: Well Emma, it's great to have you back as my co host this week. Amber did a wonderful job last episode, of course, but it's great to have you back. And this was a really interesting episode listening to Natalie and Denise talk about these issues is really fascinating. We have a lot of other stuff underway at EESI. I'll just take a moment to give a couple of quick plugs. The first is we are in the middle of a briefing series looking at existing federal programs that are delivering climate mitigation and plan adaptation benefits. The first in the series looked at the Rural Energy Savings Program, which is administered by USDA. And we have briefings coming up about energy efficiency, Landscape Conservation and climate adaptation data. So if you haven't yet RSVP for our series, you can visit us online at www.eesi.org/briefings. I think it's a really great series. And it's a really timely series. We have the bipartisan infrastructure bill enacted, there's a debate underway around Build Back Better and other initiatives around climate mitigation adaptation. But the next major opportunity to make climate investments is in regular appropriations. There are federal programs that do great work every day, we absolutely need to commit to continuing. So that's a little bit of a background about what we're up to. And I hope everyone has a chance to check it out.
Emma: Thanks, Dan, for bringing those up. And speaking of federal resources to put to this kind of work, you know, we have articles and issue briefs on EESI’s website about this, about federal resources for nature-based solutions. So I'd really encourage people to go check that out those out. I'll put those resources in the description of this episode on our website so that you can go and read them. They're really great to learn about how federal programs through agencies that already exist that are already doing great work can put even more nature-based solutions into effect. So and if you liked the story and want to learn more about EESI’s work related to nature based solutions, head to our website at eesi.org. Also follow us on social media at @eesionline for all of our recent updates. The climate conversation is published as a supplement to our bi weekly newsletter, climate change solutions, go to eesi.org/sign up to subscribe. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.
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