Posted on 06/23/2017 8:57:11 PM PDT by Lorianne
That Louisiana is sinking into the Gulf of Mexico is not news. Rising seas and coastline erosion have been working together for decades, but this sinking may well be happening faster than previously thought—threatening billions and billions of Louisiana oil infrastructure.
This is the central idea of a new study from Tulane University that set out to map the Louisiana coastline using new methods of measuring subsidence—the technical term for sinking land. The outcome of the measurements is an average 9 mm of wetlands lost to the sea every year. This compares to previous estimates of an annual subsidence rate between 1 to 6 mm.
The authors warn that there are differences in the rate of sinking at different locations along the coast, but overall, we are already seeing what other authors in earlier studies have estimated as the worst-case scenario for the future.
There is grim irony in the fact that according to the Tulane University researchers, the main reason for the accelerated sinking is the loss of sediment carried by the Mississippi River to the coast because of the numerous levees aimed at protecting cities and industrial infrastructure from flooding. Now, Gulf waters are advancing, and it is making flood threats more serious as natural defenses such as marshes are being swallowed by the sea. So is oil infrastructure.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
So long as the government is in non green freemarket hands.
I think the Atchafalaya would be the main channel now absent the levees.
***There is grim irony in the fact that according to the Tulane University researchers, the main reason for the accelerated sinking is the loss of sediment carried by the Mississippi River to the coast because of the numerous levees aimed at protecting cities and industrial infrastructure from flooding. ***
Dang! Beat me to it.
When NOLA is under 10 feet of water, I think they will have no problem drilling there either.
Is Mississippi having this problem?
It can’t be loss of sediment, it has to be global warming. It’s always global warming.
Didn’t they get the memo?
OK, class, which of these is wrong?
Got to the second sentence. Rising seas?
Mud moves downhill. Louisiana is muddy.
NOT true. Measurements are made constantly by satellite. I don't know how many per day, as there are multiple satellites involved. My brother worked for a while using the sattelite data to map potential hurricane storm surge flooding across all of South Louisiana. The land height(s) across South Louisiana are among the most accurately measured probably in the world.
Both the short-term and long-term solutions are known. Short-term are levees. Long-term is channelizing the Mississippi below New Orleans to spill the sediment east and west along the coast instead of into the abyssal deep of the Gulf of Mexico.
All that is needed is the money to make it happen.
Timing is very importante (a little Spanish lingo).
North pole sea ice for example. Africa dry/rainy seasons.
High and low tide.
The elevation of the Mississippi River channel bottom continues to increase relative to the Atchafalaya River.
Old River Control Structure 1973 flood:
https://www.johnweeks.com/river_mississippi/pages/lmiss23.html
Mud and landfill continue to compact for some time.
That’s why the levees. The silt does not contribute to the delta. It washes out to sea or it stays in the channel.
Move the port upriver.
I agree - freedom is a necessary component of my opinion.
Actually, it doesn't "wash out to sea" in the sense of just being diluted. What happens is actually much worse than that.
Due to dredging to maintain shipping channel depth, the continued growth of spoil and natural levee effect has grown south, until the silt is falling into the "deep Gulf" instead of building up the shallower coastal areas. The fix is to simply dredge new shipping channels to the west (and possibly east), and deposit the dredge spoil into the old channel.
But it literally needs an act of Congress to make this happen, and won't be cheap to do. Despite the expense, this is far, far cheaper than either building much higher levels or sacrificing all the productive infrastructure of south Louisiana.
And we can’t really count on the government to do it even if the Congress enacts the funding. Look at what happened with the levees that were supposed to be shored up with federal funding.It got frittered away and Katrina tore the place up.
The problem wasn't anything to do with either the Corps of Engineers or the federal aspects....it was due to local corruption and local politics. New Orleans committed suicide with respect to the Katrina flooding. What got built was a compromise between what the COE wanted to build, and what local residents allowed to be built.
I am from South Louisiana and grew up in the midst of the Corps of Engineers projects to tame the lower Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers. The Old River Control Structure is about eight miles from our family farm. The Morganza Floodway and locks were built during my childhood, and are about five miles south of that farm.
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