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Sinking Louisiana: A Major Threat To Billions In Oil Infrastructure
Oil Price ^ | 21 June 2017 | Irina Slav

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; US: Louisiana
KEYWORDS: energy; louisiana; oil
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1 posted on 06/23/2017 8:57:11 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Lorianne

So it will take another million yeas before it sinks?


2 posted on 06/23/2017 9:00:57 PM PDT by Tamatoa (Fight for our America, Fight for our Country I fought to defend!!!)
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To: Lorianne

Cool your jets, sweetheart. Oil companies employ lots and lots of smart people, even smarter than you. The oil companies will figure out the remedies necessary well in advance of you running out of power.


3 posted on 06/23/2017 9:02:29 PM PDT by Rembrandt
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To: Lorianne

I have not been impressed with Oil Price.


4 posted on 06/23/2017 9:03:22 PM PDT by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: Lorianne

There’s something to be said about “Necessity being the Mother of Invention”

These doomsayers have no clue about what people can or will do to solve problems.


5 posted on 06/23/2017 9:06:14 PM PDT by Zeneta
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To: Tamatoa

Actually all of the Mississippi Delta is less than 10,000 years old. I am pretty certain there is some very interesting human artifacts and settlements that are buried under the 350 feet of sediment deposited since the end of the ice age. 10,000 years ago sea levels were 350 feet lower than today and we all know that most cities are near the coasts along rivers.

They do need a way to get sediment from the river to start rebuilding the delta but this is pure alarmism by nerds looking for government grants.


6 posted on 06/23/2017 9:06:41 PM PDT by WMarshal (President Trump, a president keeping his promises to the American people. It feels like winning.)
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To: Lorianne

The river wants to go to Morgan City, but we won’t let it.


7 posted on 06/23/2017 9:07:28 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (I was conceived in liberty, how about you?)
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To: Lorianne
9 millimeters is huge! Almost a full centimeter! Way more than the piddly half a centimeter that they estimated before. A centimeter is 2/5 of an inch. That means almost, but not quite, 2 inches every five years. Lets see, 12 inches, divide by 5, carry the one, and we have, uh... Nuts! Too hard.

So it would take thirty years for one foot of coastline to recede. If levees receded at that rate, they would add more dirt. So three feet in a long human lifetime is almost not enough to notice. Also it doesn't account for the natural erosion that happens just because of regular weather. Which, if I read this correctly, would be about half of the new, improved rate.

8 posted on 06/23/2017 9:14:33 PM PDT by webheart
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To: Lorianne

Start pumping faster...


9 posted on 06/23/2017 9:14:39 PM PDT by Paladin2 (No spelchk nor wrong word auto substition on mobile dev. Please be intelligent and deal with it....)
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To: Lorianne

Major pipelines from under-water to under land, heading far inland from the Gulf, and moving refineries to far more northern terminus of those pipelines, and out of bearing the brunt of Hurricanes and Mississippi gulf subsidence would be good “infrastructure” investments”. Fueling supply tankers from the refineries could move in the opposite direction to tankers anchored in the Gulf.


10 posted on 06/23/2017 9:15:38 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: Repeal The 17th

Free the Big Muddy!


11 posted on 06/23/2017 9:15:47 PM PDT by Paladin2 (No spelchk nor wrong word auto substition on mobile dev. Please be intelligent and deal with it....)
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To: Tamatoa

[[but this sinking may well be happening faster than previously thought—threatening billions and billions of Louisiana oil infrastructure.]]

At which point we’ll just have to convert the wells to undersea ones- no big deal- plenty of time to prepare


12 posted on 06/23/2017 9:16:14 PM PDT by Bob434
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To: webheart

Subsiding, Not receding.


13 posted on 06/23/2017 9:23:44 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: Lorianne

“.....Rising seas......”

Um, no.


14 posted on 06/23/2017 9:26:38 PM PDT by headstamp 2 (Ignorance is reparable, stupid is forever)
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To: Lorianne

Well, that settles it. Those nasty levees and dams that support human life are fighting mother nature so humans must leave for gaia’s sake.

Or we could dump dirt like Dubai and make pretty islands


15 posted on 06/23/2017 9:30:11 PM PDT by blueplum ( ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017))
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To: blueplum

They are suggesting spending billions to restore what was originally there, namely marshes that protected the delta from erosion.

Yes, we can do lots of things but nature bats last.


16 posted on 06/23/2017 9:34:58 PM PDT by Lorianne
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To: Repeal The 17th

IMO, there should be a number of spillway gates in the river levees downriver of New Orleans, to periodically allow river water and silt to be carried out into the marshy areas that are currently “sinking”. Currently, all that sediment is being ejected out into the Mississippi Sound.


17 posted on 06/23/2017 9:35:18 PM PDT by Charles Martel (Progressives are the crab grass in the lawn of life.)
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To: Lorianne

Levees have a lot to do with the sinking state. The silt is channeled out into the gulf far enough that it does not add to the delta. The river is prevented from changing course which it did periodically in days of yore and distributed the silt better and built up the coast. Loss of NO would put a terrific crimp in the national economy way beyond the loss of oil rigs and refineries as it is the port that sends out the products of the entire Mississippi Basin which is the entire midwest. Transport to NO by water is easy and much cheaper than transport by truck and train to the West Coast or Norfolk or New York.


18 posted on 06/23/2017 9:52:48 PM PDT by arthurus
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To: Lorianne
The outcome of the measurements is an average 9 mm of wetlands lost to the sea every year.

If my quick math is right that means they will lose a foot of wetlands in 30+ years.

19 posted on 06/23/2017 9:53:04 PM PDT by plain talk
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To: Tamatoa

Look at decadal geographic maps of the coast for the last only half century. There is a hell of a lot more water in Southern LA now than there was in 1984, when I traveled about the area.


20 posted on 06/23/2017 9:54:51 PM PDT by arthurus
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