Important context from the article includes things such as: unspent funds remain available for future projects; the works were predicted to have a devastating impact on local wildlife, such as killing an estimated 6,000 dolphins; this is not a partisan issue, as there have been outspoken Dems and Republicans on either side; also devastating impact to the local fishing industry was predicted, prompting a $400m lawsuit to curtail the project.
The article doesn't even go into this, but the primary cause of the issue is not climate change, but natural processes. The Mississippi river used to be undammed and untrammeled; envision a hose whipping around (in geological terms) spraying tremendous amounts of sediment over a very wide area.
Now, the Mississippi is tightly controlled. Most areas are no longer getting that sediment. So natural subsidence and erosion processes mean that "land" is sinking back below the water.
The solution (for this project) entailed reconnecting the Mississippi to the area, restoring sediment deposition. But this does have a lot of negative effects as well, because it impacts salinity levels and of course the Mississippi is also full of fertilizer and other substances.
Landry completely misrepresented the appendix of an engineering report to call the diversion threatening to shrimp when it was talking about ranges of possibilities.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 32.8 ms ] threadNow, the Mississippi is tightly controlled. Most areas are no longer getting that sediment. So natural subsidence and erosion processes mean that "land" is sinking back below the water.
The solution (for this project) entailed reconnecting the Mississippi to the area, restoring sediment deposition. But this does have a lot of negative effects as well, because it impacts salinity levels and of course the Mississippi is also full of fertilizer and other substances.