National Wildlife Federation, Tulane Issue Recommendations for a More Resilient New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS -- Today the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the Tulane University ByWater Institute released recommendations on how the City of New Orleans can "actively build coastal resiliency across the metro region."

It's no secret that New Orleans has lost an area the size of Rhode Island, over 2,000 square miles in 80 years, due to coastal erosion. With climate change threatening to amp up extreme weather events, there's never been a more critical time to rally forces and buttress the Big Easy. To the extent that that's possible, of course.

The recommendations announced today derive from a planning session held earlier this year when 40 representatives of business and industry, state and local governments, academia, non-profit organizations and community-based groups met to discuss how NOLA can assist in making coastal Louisiana more physically, economically and socially resilient, according to an NWF release.

The report's executive summary states that, "According to the State of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, a future without action could mean a loss of roughly 2,250 square miles of land over the next 50 years."

The recommendations center around: coordinating with regional partners across city departments, communicating the rationale for immediate and sustained action and promoting equitable solutions that enable New Orleans and the region to thrive.

“The reality is that, while many residents may not think of New Orleans this way, our Crescent City is a coastal city,” said David Muth , director of NWF’s Gulf Restoration Program. “Healthy coastal wetlands all around New Orleans provide a critical buffer from storm surge and protection for our communities. Without them, our citizens are at increased risk from the impacts of extreme storms and sea level rise.”

Tulane President Mike Fitts said the report highlights the inextricable link between the future of New Orleans and future of Louisiana’s coast.

“As our home for 184 years, the health and sustainability of New Orleans as a coastal city is a top priority of Tulane University,” he said.

Muth said the recommendations provide steps forward in creating a path of forward-thinking resilience, accounting for coastal adaptation and restoration of wetlands: maintaining affordable insurance options for residents and businesses, supporting New Orleans communities inside and outside the levee system, creating an economic development plan for the water economy and engaging youth in issues related to coastal environments.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu weighed in: “Climate change is a threat that affects us all, and it is a real and present danger to our coastal communities. Here in Louisiana, we face a triple threat: subsidence, coastal erosion and sea level rise. If unchecked, New Orleans, like many coastal cities, will cease to exist. Time is of the essence in combatting this critical existential threat, and our coastal city is on the front line.”

The full report can be found here.

Photos by Laurie Wiegler: New Orleans' Napoleon House restaurant and bar and flying out of the Big Easy after the BP oil spill, Aug. 2010.

BP heads back to court Monday: Wants to downplay amount of oil that spewed into Gulf

This morning, the National Wildlife Federation e-mailed a press release, which I received. They remind that on Monday, BP heads back to court "to try and convince U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier that the company’s Deepwater Horizon well spewed just 2.45 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico—significantly less than the 4.1 million barrels the government’s team of scientists has estimated."

The NWF, rightly, points out that BP "has a long history of downplaying the size of the spill—the company pled guilty to lying to Congress on this very topic."

Any decrease in the official estimate of the volume of the spill would greatly benefit BP’s bottom line, NWF says. "Under the Clean Water Act, BP will have to pay anywhere from $1,100 to $4,300 per barrel spilled, depending on the degree of negligence found.

Reducing the estimated size of the spill will also hurt the outlook for the Gulf of Mexico. Thanks to the RESTORE Act, 80 percent of the Clean Water Act fines will be sent back to the region affected by the disaster."

Here are some of the areas that NWF urgently wants addressed:

• Deep sea impacts: Just yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a study indicating that it may take decades for the deep sea ecosystem to recover.
• Dolphin deaths: NOAA’s investigation into the unprecedented dolphin and whale mortalities in the Gulf of Mexico—particularly bottlenose dolphins—continues.
• Oiled shorelines: In June, a 40,000-pound tar mat was found off a Louisiana barrier island and 200 miles of the Louisiana coast remain oiled. Tar balls from the disaster regularly foul the beaches and coastlines of Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
• Blue crabs: Crabbers from Florida to Louisiana are complaining about low crab catches this year and scientists are investigating the oil disaster as a potential cause. 

NWF writes that BP is "...trying to walk away from the Gulf with as little liability as possible, most notably in its attempts to limit settlement payouts to businesses harmed by the spill."

Monday issues in the second phase of the trial, which will determine the company’s civil liabilities for violating the Clean Water Act, the Oil Pollution Act and other federal environmental laws.

The Clean Water Act civil fines are meant to be punitive, while the Oil Pollution Act requires that BP pay to repair the damage to the Gulf.

For more information, please click here.

Bold marks/hyperlinks are largely those of the writer's.
Note: an earlier version of this blog incorrectly listed the NWF as the National Fish & Wildlife Federation.
Caption for photo: An egret in the Gulf of Mexico was oiled because of the BP spill. Credits: U.S.Fish & Wildlife Service