Yesterday, the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group (LA TIG), the group of state and federal agencies responsible for overseeing and approving spending Deepwater Horizon natural resource damages oil spill settlement dollars in Louisiana, approved $2.26 billion in funding for construction of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion.
Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority Chairman Chip Kline said with this funding, they are equipped to bring the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion to life and implement a fundamentally new approach to restoration that makes Louisiana’s coastal program stronger and more sustainable than ever before.
The LA TIG evaluated the proposed Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, a range of alternatives, and a future without the project under the Oil Pollution Act to determine the project’s effectiveness in restoring for injuries to the natural resources in the Barataria Basin caused by the oil spill.
Barataria Basin, the project’s location and greatest beneficiary, is one of the areas most impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequent response activities. As noted in their final Restoration Plan, the LA TIG believes that a sediment diversion is the only way to achieve a self-sustaining marsh ecosystem in the Barataria Basin.
In December 2022, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) published a Record of Decision (ROD) and approved the permits and permissions necessary to construct the project, completing an extensive environmental review process. With funding secured, CPRA is coordinating with USACE to finalize all engineering and design tasks and complete the administrative steps necessary to begin construction.
It is anticipated that construction activities will begin later this year and take at least five years to complete.
