Talk:Louisiana barrier island plan

Text moved from main BP oil spill article

This was the text in the main article for the barrier islands. We still need a small summary there. Wanted to leave this here in case more can be added to this article. petrarchan47tc 01:50, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

On 21 May, Plaquemines Parish president Billy Nungesser publicly complained about the federal government's hindrance of local mitigation efforts. State and local officials had proposed building sand berms off the coast to catch the oil before it reached the wetlands, but the emergency permit request had not been answered for over two weeks. The following day, Nungesser complained that the plan had been vetoed, while Army Corps of Engineers officials said that the request was still under review.[1] Gulf Coast Government officials released water through Mississippi River diversions to create an outflow of water that would keep the oil off the coast. The water from these diversions comes from the entire Mississippi watershed. Even with this approach, on 23 May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted a massive landfall to the west of the Mississippi River at Port Fourchon.[2] On 23 May, Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell wrote to Lieutenant General Robert L. Van Antwerp of the US Army Corps of Engineers, stating that Louisiana had the right to dredge sand to build barrier islands to keep the oil spill from its wetlands without the Corps' approval, as the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prevents the federal government from denying a state the right to act in an emergency.[3] [4] [5] He also wrote that if the Corps "persists in its illegal and ill-advised efforts" to prevent the state from building the barriers that he would advise Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to build the berms and challenge the Corps in court.[6] On 3 June, BP said barrier projects ordered by Adm. Thad Allen would cost $360 million. On 16 June, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company under the Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure Group began constructing sand berms off the Louisiana coast.[7]

By late October, the state of Louisiana had spent $240 million of the proposed $360 million from BP. The barrier had captured an estimated 1,000 barrels (160 m³) of oil, but critics and experts say the barrier is purely symbolic and call it "an exercise in futility" given the estimated 5,000,000 barrels (790,000 m³) of oil in the gulf and the millions of dollars and man-hours used to build the barrier. Many scientists say the remaining oil in the Gulf is far too dispersed to be blocked or captured by the sand structures. "It certainly would have no impact on the diluted oil, which is what we're talking about now," said Larry McKinney, head of the Gulf of Mexico research center at Texas A&M University. "The probability of their being effective right now is pretty low."[8]

On 16 December, a report by a presidential commission called the berms project "underwhelmingly effective, overwhelmingly expensive" because little oil appeared on the berms. However, the commission admitted the berm might help with reversing the effects of erosion on the coast. Jindal called the report "partisan revisionist history at taxpayer expense".[9]