August 26, 2016 — George Ricks represents one of the great ironies in the debate over how to restore and protect parts of Louisiana’s rapidly-vanishing coast.
Like many of those who depend most on Louisiana’s estuaries, the charter boat captain is deeply skeptical of the state’s plans to build massive structures and deliver Mississippi River sediment into the marsh with the aim of building land.
“They’re going to turn both of the estuaries, Barataria and Breton, totally fresh from February to July,” said Ricks, “which is going to wipe out our spawning seasons.”
A group of scientists and community experts came together to examine not whether to building diversions, but how they would be operated.
“When people come to New Orleans, they want to eat oysters, they want to eat seafood. they want to eat shrimp,” said Dr. Earl Melancon, Ph.D., a Nicholls State University expert on shellfish.
Melancon was one of a dozen experts who, in essence, tackled the question of whether it is possible to partially free the Mississippi River from its straight jacket of levees without ruining an entire way of life.