Representatives of several federal agencies reviewing ways to speed ecosystem restoration efforts in Louisiana and Mississippi got an earful of advice from coastal residents on Monday during the first of three days of meetings in the two states.
The Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast Ecosystem Working Group was created in part to prioritize ecosystem restoration projects that are awaiting construction in Louisiana, said Nancy Sutley, working group co-chair and chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
But the panel of senior agency officials also is working on ways to get other agencies to add their expertise to water resource projects that often are designed and built only by the Army Corps of Engineers.