2theadvocate.com | News | MRGO closing to boat traffic — Baton Rouge, LA

2theadvocate.com | News | MRGO closing to boat traffic — Baton Rouge, LA

By AMY WOLD
Advocate staff writer
Published: Apr 20, 2009
Comments (0)


The long-awaited closure of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet will reach another milestone Wednesday, when the channel becomes officially closed to boat traffic.

But that will not be the end of the work that is needed, members of the MRGO Must Go coalition say.

“While they shut the channel down to boat traffic, MRGO is still an accident waiting to happen,” said Aaron Viles, of the Gulf Restoration Network.

The MRGO is blamed with bringing salt water from the Gulf of Mexico into the freshwater marshes in St. Bernard Parish and hastening marsh and land loss.

The wetlands — and cypress forests — that used to exist are what members of the MRGO Must Go coalition would like to see restored for ecological and hurricane protection reasons, said Wilma Subra, consultant with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
Marylee Orr, director of LEAN, agreed.

“I think a lot of people say it’s closed so it’s not a reason for concern,” Orr said. “It’s not done.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is building a rock closure on the man-made shipping channel between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico at Bayou La Loutre in St. Bernard Parish. The structure will include 433,500 tons of rocks piled 450 feet wide at the bottom of the structure and 12 feet across at the top, according to a corps news release.

The top of the structure will be about eight feet above sea level. The project is about 50 percent complete and is expected to be completed by July, said Greg Miller, senior project manager for the MRGO project.

Enough work has been done that the water depth over the project has gone from 40 feet to about 14 feet, which makes it hazardous for boats still using the channel that need 12 feet of draft, he said. That’s why the channel will be officially closed to boat traffic Wednesday, Miller said.

On the ecosystem restoration side, the corps is working on a feasibility study and Environmental Impact Statement that Congress approved in the 2007 Water Resource Development Act or WRDA.

That study will look at restoration in areas impacted by the channel stretching all the way from north of Lake Maurepas down through the channel area and even into Mississippi, he said. In all, the feasibility study is looking at project area measuring 3.86 million acres — about 6,000 square miles, Miller said.

“It’s a very large area,” Miller said.

To better manage the large area, the corps has broken the study area into more manageable pieces and met with people interested in that specific area, he said. One of the most recent meetings included discussion about the central wetlands in St. Bernard Parish between 40 Arpent levee and the MRGO levee.

NEXT PAGE » 1 2

BLOGGER NOTE:
Interesting that they would publish this TODAY.
It shines a favorale light on the US Army Corps of Engineers.... when their trial begins TODAY for the utter failure of 53 levee breaches!!