Coastal land loss likely to accelerate

Nick Speyer followed a sixth grade assignment all the way to a career.
“I am incredibly passionate about coastal management,” Speyer said as he spoke to the Eunice Rotary Club on Wednesday. “I was introduced to coastal management by a sixth grade social studies project, and it has turned into what it is now.”
“This much land loss is unprecedented. If another country tried to take a Delaware-size piece of land from us, we would declare war. Our delta and land-making machine is in a straightjacket of levees.”
“This is what has happened in the last 70 years, and here’s what could happen in 50 more years,” Speyer said as he showed a map of land loss and land loss projections. “We will lose another 1,750 square miles of land if nothing is done.”
Speyer works for the Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge, and the not-for-profit, independent applied research institute works to provide understanding and technical expertise to support management of coastal, deltaic and water systems. The institute works on range of research projects to help address the state’s coastal crisis.
“We have great research at our institute and a suite of services including applied research from lots of universities and technical support,” Speyer said. “Our program areas include modeling and monitoring, public research, coastal systems ecology and human dimensions. We are linking knowledge to action and innovation.”
Speyer then discussed the economic impact coastal Louisiana has on the state and the country.
“Coastal Louisiana is of critical importance to this nation,” Speyer said. “Two million people live in coastal Louisiana. That’s 40 percent of our population. There is also an incredibly massive economy in coastal Louisiana. Twenty-six percent of U.S. commercial fisheries in the continental U.S. are in Louisiana. The economic engine here is at an incredible risk.”
“We have the world’s greatest delta, and we take it for granted.”
According to Speyer, the state of Louisiana’s coast took front and center following hurricanes Rita and Katrina, then again after hurricanes Gustav and Ike and once again following the oil spill in 2010.
“In 2005, Louisiana got it together with the CPRA (Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority),” he said. “Then the Coastal Master Plan really put us on the map.”
In addition to showing Rotary members and guests maps of the past and potential land loss along Louisiana’s coastline, Speyer also showed how Wonder Lake, in Terrebonne Parish, grew from a small, closed-in lake, to a large open bay near the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’ve got to think about the long term future,” Speyer said. “The challenges in Grand Chenier, Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes and St. Bernard and Plaquemine parishes are all different.”
“We need to reconnect with the Mississippi River, but there are levees and other complicating factors on the west side of the river. There’s a highway and a railroad. Do we elevate those? We need to get freshwater and sediment to Terrebonne Parish. That could be done through the Atchafalaya River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. We need sediment higher up the system. When sediment comes out of the river, it is falling off a 5,000 foot shelf.”
To contact Claudette Olivier, email claudette.olivier@eunicetoday.com.