January 13, 2024 — A pair of Louisiana seafood processors joined conservationists and a local resident Thursday to file a federal complaint against the ambitious Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project, a $2.9 billion effort to combat the state’s trend of coastal land loss.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs claim the project “will have serious, permanent, adverse impacts on [the basin’s] resources,” including its species diversity, its economy and human health.
They say that in authorizing the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated administrative procedures and the National Environmental Policy Review Act (NEPA), while federal agencies conducting environmental reviews violated the Endangered Species Act.
The project, which is primarily funded with $2.26 billion from Natural Resource Damage Assessment funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement, broke ground in August 2023. A joint effort of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, it will feature a controlled gate structure through the river’s existing levee connected to a new, approximately 2-mile manmade channel with an outfall structure in the basin.