This past I was invited to speak before a Joint Committee hearing at the Louisiana Legislature. The agenda was vague, but I was excited to speak before pretty much all of the Legislative Committees that oversee some aspect of coastal restoration and protection. As is stated in this Times-Picayune article, the Army Corps of Engineers declined to even show up to this hearing to explain why they have missed yet another deadline to give Congress actual concrete plan to restore and protect Louisiana’s coast. The majority of the hearing centered around the Corps’ lack of action and what Louisiana could do to move forward with restoration without the Corps. The clock is ticking for the coast. The Corps was ordered by Congress to deliver a plan with proposed projects that would give Louisiana “Category 5” protection from storms. This plan was due December 2007. What the Corps is working on, is not even an actual plan. Instead, it will be a “decision matrix” that gives no recommendations for any particular projects. The Joint Committee was outraged, and they should be. We must start rebuilding our wetlands now in order to protect our communities, fisheries, and wildlife. For the most part people in Louisiana understand the urgency, as we have seen the results of leveeing off the Mississippi and destroying our wetlands for oil and gas canals, navigation canals, and private development. The nation has to get behind restoring Louisiana’s wetlands, and the Corps is proving to be a major blockade. Please take a moment to email Congress to ask them to demand an actual plan from the Corps so we can move ahead in protecting the wetlands that we have and restoring those that we have lost.Matt Rota is GRN’s Water Resources Program Director
