Tag: louisiana

New Orleans Levee System is Completed ahead of the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season

A celebration was recently held to commemorate the completion of the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System, an expansive levee system consisting of gates and flood-walls that will defend the Greater New Orleans Area against severe storms, according to this feature by Nola.com.

Known colloquially as “the Great Wall of Louisiana,” the Hurricane and Storm Damage Risk Reduction System (HSDRRS)’s completion was celebrated by Gov. John Bel Edwards, the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and various other state, local, and federal officials. The completion of the Greater New Orleans Hurricane System came just under two decades after Hurricane Katrinaprompted Congress to provide $14.5 billion to begin constructing a system that would provide the Greater New Orleans area with a protective system to help fend off future storm surges. That initial $14.5 investment allowed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to apply the latest data science and engineering practices in the design and construction processes.

Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards spoke of the project and the massive achievements of those involved in its completion by saying, “the HSDRRS is the largest civil works project in the Corps’ history and is the result of nearly two decades of hard work and collaboration at the local, state, and federal level. The people of New Orleans have experienced the worst Mother Nature has to offer, and with the completion of the system, they’ll be protected by the best of engineering, design, and hurricane protection.”

Now that the construction is completed, the federal government has formally turned over the completed system to Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority for purposes of operation and maintenance. Chip Kline, the chairman of Louisiana’s CPRA, called the system “one of the greatest engineering feats in the history of the world.” Kline went on to say, “this is a monumental day for Louisiana. In the past year, the state’s coastal program has made historic investments in restoration and hurricane protection across South Louisiana, and the turnover of the HSDRRSis yet another critical step in this effort. With its completion, nearly a million people and over $170 billion in assets are better protected.”

Because two New Orleans-area flood protection authorities will be taking over the maintenance and operations of the system upon its completion, both the East and West Louisiana Flood Protection Authority will fund the upkeep and operation of the levee system. This amounts to about $7.8 million for the west bank and $25 million for the east bank.

While forecasters are already predicting a particularly active hurricane season for the Gulf Coast, Louisiana State Officials are already determined to make it clear to residents that this levee system project will not eliminate all risk factors and that people should still make evacuation plans ahead of time. The Governor’s office reminded citizens that as the state and Greater New Orleans region enter into the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season, the HSDRRS should never be considered to be a “life safety system.”

Commander of the USACE New Orleans District Col. Stephen Murphy spoke of his confidence in the project’s final form by saying, “we know that eventually, we will face a surge greater than the 1-percent elevations so we designed the HSDRRS to be overtopped. With all of the armoring now in place, this system enters the 2022 Hurricane Seasonstronger than it has ever been.”

Due to the detrimental active Hurricane season of the past two years, not only is the completion of this “Great Wall of Louisiana” greatly appreciated, but it should be noted that it is only one component of an individual or the state’s overall hurricane preparedness plan. For the state of Louisiana, that means the local, state, and federal emergency response plans, which are coordinated and rehearsed throughout the year, are also an integral part of preparing for the storms to come.

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UL Lafayette Announced Project to Increase Oyster Resilience

It was recently announced that The University of Louisiana at Lafayette will be spearheading a $14 million research initiative over a three year period to develop a resilient oyster broodstock that will have the ability to live in environments with low salinity, according to a press release from the university and an article from The Acadiana Advocate. The project to create oyster resilience, which is being funded by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, is called LO-SPAT or “Leveraging Opportunities and Strategic Partnerships to Advance Tolerant Oysters for Restoration. It’s designed to help sustain populations of shellfish and at the same time support the seafood industry.

The project’s principal investigator Dr. Beth Stauffe, commented on the project’s objective by saying, “the objective is to examine low-salinity tolerant populations of oysters. We’re researching how low salinity – and other environmental stressors – factor in, and identifying heritable traits that make some oysters hardier than others.”

Outside of being LO-SPAT’s principal investigator, Dr. Stauffe is an associate professor in the Department of Biologyat UL Lafayette as well as a phytoplankton ecologist. Alongside Dr. Stauffe, the project will be worked on by other researchers from UL Lafayette, scientists from the LSU Agricultural Center, and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The project’s partner from the private sector is the Mississippi-based oyster aquaculture company Spat-Tech.

One of the principal efforts the project team focused on was the collective examination of the entire oyster life cycle– from larvae to broodstock to juveniles- at which point they can be deployed into nurseries and restored reef sites. In order to observe the entire life cycle, the team of researchers must both pool together its multiple sources of expertise in oyster husbandry, molecular biology, coastal ecology, restoration ecology, environmental monitoring, economics, and organismal biology.

The process to begin the creation of better oyster resilience and sustainable breeding operations for the oysters starts with the collecting of wild oysters, introducing them to what’s known as stressors, and using molecular tools to determine which oysters prove capable in unfavorable conditions. The resilient oysters that will emerge from this project will be incredibly impactful due to the fact that Louisiana is one of the nation’s major oyster-producing states.

Despite their popularity, the recent years haven’t been kind to the Louisiana shellfish, as production has declined due to the increases seen in rainfall and flooding in the state and along the Gulf Coast in recent years. This has created massive ecological and economic consequences because the increase in rainwater has introduced high amounts of freshwater into reefs and oyster habitats, which is disrupting the amount of salt that they need to survive, grow, and reproduce, therefore decreasing our oyster resilience.

The secretary of the LO-SPAT project’s funding partner, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, is Jack Montoucet. Montoucet commented on the impact of the project by saying, “A comprehensive approach to addressing a state, regional and national problem, and we’re excited to play a role in that. Developing an oyster that can tolerate low salinity for an extended period of time – which we don’t have now – is important to maintaining the industry as we know it. And with all of the research capabilities that exist today, we should be able to do that.

In order for a coastal ecosystem to be considered healthy, a resilient supply of oysters are absolutely essential, as they both build reefs that provide a habitat for fish and other marine life and filter massive volumes of water. The Gulf of Mexico produces approximately 46% of the United States’s oysters with the regional oyster industry producing an annual value of $66 million. Therefore, LO-SPAT and other similar initiatives are ever-more vital to a healthy economy and sealife.

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Bourgeois Meat Market to Open Second Location After Over a Century in Business

For over a century, the Schriever butcher shop and South Louisiana culinary staple known as Bourgeois Meat Market has made a name for itself with its beef jerky, summer sausage, and other cajun specialties along Bayou Terrebonne at 543 West Main St. in Schriever, Louisiana. This popularity has resulted in Bourgeois Meat Market, which was founded in 1891, planning on opening a second location in Gray, Louisiana in early 2023, according to this article from HoumaToday.

Bourgeois Meat Market was founded by Valery Jean Baptiste Bourgeois, and it was started in his front yard in 1891. Fourth-generation owner Beau Bourgeois detailed the market’s origins by saying, “he started off by slaughtering a cow or a pig and going by horse and carriage house-to-house. That was the days before refrigeration. Later on, he eventually built a little smokehouse. The whole reason they started doing that was so that you could keep the fresh sausage for a couple of extra days.”

Eventually, that tenacious spirit snowballed and resulted in the construction of the market’s first building being erected on the opposite side of the street from its Schriever location. When Valery Bourgeois returned from serving in World War II, he moved the market into its current location bayouside, but today, Beau Bourgeois says that the current site is inefficient due to its layout, despite additions made to the location numerous times over the years.

Simply put, the current location doesn’t offer enough space to stuff sausage and boudin, two of the market’s top sellers, and so a solution was born. While the current location will continue to operate in its current spot, a second location is set to open in early 2023 at 3700 West Park Ave., where construction is already underway. The new location, which will be approximately twice the size of the current shop (at 9,000 square feet), was originally planned to be completed two years ago, but it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ida.

The new shop will allow for more services to be offered by Bourgeois Meat Market, including a pick-up station where customers can quickly pick up specialty items such as daily plate lunches and stuffed meats. Also, while the current site employs 30 workers who will be spread between the two locations, approximately 30 new employees will be hired to help man the demand of a second location. One employee, Connor Finn of Gretna, Louisiana, reflected on the prospect of what a second location will hold by saying, “I’m actually really excited about it. You’ve got the production kitchen, then the service kitchen, and you also have the slicing room.”

Bourgeois Meat Market’s beef jerky, customer service, and brand name are all associated with high quality all across Louisiana but also the county at large. Some of Bourgeois Meat Market’s accolades and honors include being named among the “100 Southern Foods You Absolutely, Positively Must Try Before You Die” by Garden and Gun magazine.

Additionally, the industry-famous “ultimate destination for all things food,” website Mashed named Bourgeois on its list of “The Absolute Best Meat Markets in the US,” saying, “ The original Cajun jerky offered at this shop is legendary. In addition to the jerky, this local treasure also sells other snacking meats such as beef styx, crackling, and summer sausages. If you’re in the mood for a culinary adventure, try the boudin. Bourgeois Meat Market also offers services such as deer processing. This butchery has both classic and unique options available. Whatever you feel like, one thing’s for sure, this butcher shop is beloved among locals.”

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Bayou Chene Floodgate Protection Project Celebrates Completion

Recently, a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of the Bayou Chene Floodgate, a long-heralded project designed to protect southeastern Louisiana parishes against backwater flooding from the Atchafalaya River, according to this article from the Houma Times.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony saw Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards joining the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the St. Mary Levee District, and other state and local leaders to celebrate the completion of the $80 million flood control structure. CPRA Chairman Chip Kline commented on the impact that will result from the completion of the 446-foot floodgate by saying, “the completion of the Bayou Chene Floodgate is a gamechanger for the homes and businesses across this six-parish region. With its installation, nearly 30,000 residents will be protected from Atchafalaya River backwater flooding.”

The Bayou Chene Flood Protection Project, which was completed using funding from the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) and in partnership with the St. Mary Levee District, is positioned to act as a permanent structure and prevent Atchafalaya River backwater flooding from impacting St. Mary, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Martin, Assumption, and Iberville parishes.

Governor Edwards commented on the ongoing problem that Atchafalaya River backwater flooding has caused for the past fifty years saying, “this region has relied on temporary measures to prevent backwater flooding since the 1970s. With the completion of this decades-long effort, the people of St. Mary and the five surrounding parishes can rest easier knowing they’re protected by a permanent flood control structure. I applaud the collaboration between CPRAand the St. Mary Levee District that brought this important project to fruition.”

Before the Bayou Chene Floodgate, rising water levels in the Mississippi River would cause the Morganza Control Structure to open during high water events, thus diverting water from the Mississippi River to the Atchafalaya Basin. When this happens, the excess water creates backwater flooding and threatens the surrounding area. Now, the new structure will eliminate the need to sink temporary barges in the Bayou in times of high water, a flood-prevention act that has needed to happen four times since 2011, costing between $5.5 to $8 million per flood each time. The overall Bayou Chene Floodgate Project was a long-term investment from CPRA to eliminate this recurring cost, so the $80 million costs will surely be paid back over the next century.

Governor Edwards said of the expenditure, “this is a tremendous investment — it’s going to pay for itself over and over and over again.” According to Gov. Edwards, those temporary solutions to the problem would take approximately 10 days to install each time a flooding event would occur, but now the Bayou Chene Floodgate will only take 10 hours to close.

The Bayou Chene Floodgate was a component of the 2012 Coastal Master Plan, and the efforts to complete the project were led by Louisiana Senator Bret Allain (R-Franklin) and State Representative Sam Jones (D-Franklin). Louisiana Sen. Bret Allain commented, saying that the impact of the project’s completion will be seen in the protection of 6,000 households and 1,000 businesses, totaling nearly 30,000 residents who will be impacted by the extra safety measure.

The executive director of the St. Mary Levee District, Tim Matte, spoke at the ribbon-cutting ceremony in a prepared statement in which he relayed the state’s increased confidence in dealing with the challenges that are brought along with a rising Atchafalaya River and also that the previous temporary measures would be effective but ultimately costly and risky. Matte said, “now with the completion of the permanent structure, we can close the Bayou in a timely manner, with minimal impacts to the navigation interests, minimal risks to team members, and with minimal environmental impacts to the region.”

The ceremony concluded with CPRA Chairman Chip Kline celebrating the ongoing $1.3 billion dollars that have been allocated this year for ongoing state coastal projects. Kline said, “we’ve got a lot more work ahead of us,” Kline said. “And I know that if we continue with the partnerships and collaboration and coordination we’re going to be successful in protecting the overwhelming majority of our citizens and restoring our coast.”

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Surplus Funding for Louisiana Coastal Restoration and Protection

Alongside the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards recently announced a proposal to allocate $150 million in surplus funding toward coastal restoration and protection projects, as per the governor’s office.

During the April press conference, Governor Edwards announced his proposal by saying, “at this moment, we are reaping the rewards of over a decade and a half of planning and implementation efforts. We have invested in the science and directed every available dollar toward projects that deliver real benefits to our people. Our track record of investment and implementation has allowed CPRA’s program to grow steadily into the success story it is today. The confidence we have in our coastal program has now been reaffirmed by an even larger investment from the federal government. I am now asking the Legislature to help us recover further from the devastating hurricanes of 2020 and 2021 by dedicating $150 million of state surplus to projects that will make us safer and more resilient well into the future.”

At the press conference, Col. Stephen Murphy, the commander of the USACE New Orleans District, commented on the Governor’s office’s push toward coastal restoration. Col. Murphy said, “coastal Louisiana’s importance to the Nation is underscored by the Administration and Congress’ recent investment of more than $2.6 billion under the Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs acts. We look forward to our continued partnership with the State of Louisiana in delivering their commitment to support the area’s recovery and improve its resiliency to future conditions.”

The $150 in surplus funding will be allocated to fifteen total coastal projects, with $84.5 million being directed toward restoration efforts and $65 million toward hurricane and flood protection projects across 13 parishes. The many projects range from $200,000 allocated for the LSU Center for River Studies in Baton Rouge to $38 million being allocated for the design and construction of the Northwest Little Lake Marsh Creation in Lafourche Parish.

The full list, which can be viewed here, includes $30 million for construction of the Pailet and Crown Point Basin polders of the Lafitte Tidal Protection project in Jefferson Parish, $12 million for construction of the LaBranche Shoreline Protection project in St. Charles Parish, $2 million toward funding the Atchafalaya Basin Program for environmental restoration efforts and enhanced recreational opportunities, and $10 million toward the Southwest Coastal Project in Cameron, Calcasieu, and Vermilion parishes. Additionally, $5 million will be allocated toward various Vermillion Parish projects, including funding for shoreline protection and ridge restoration projects at Cheniere au Tigre as well as an increment of the North Vermilion Bay Shoreline Protection Project.

The mandate of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is to develop, implement, and enforce a comprehensive coastal protection and restoration master plan. As per its website, the CPRA’s 2023 Coastal Master Plan “will build upon previous master plan efforts and strive to ensure that the collective effects of project investments reduce storm surge-based flood risk to communities, provide habitats to support an array of commercial and recreational activities, and support infrastructure critical to the working coast. This will be achieved by harnessing natural processes, focusing protection on key assets, and adapting to changing coastal conditions.”

As revealed by CPRA Chairman Chip Kline, the 2023 Annual Plan is the largest in CPRA history. Chairman Kline stated, “this is a pivotal moment for the coastal program. Our 2023 Annual Plan is the largest in CPRA history, with over a billion dollars allocated for construction and major investments in hurricane protection, sediment diversions, and 23 dredging projects across our coast. We are excited to see the prioritization of vital coastal restoration and protection projects in this year’s surplus funding.”

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ULL Scientists Research Environmental Impacts of Hurricanes

A partnership of two researchers at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is working within an international team of scientists to study the ecological impacts of previous hurricanes to inform how coastal ecosystems may best prepare for and respond to future storms, according to a news release from the University.

The international research team of scientists has recently published their study, “A General Pattern of Trade-Offs Between Ecosystem Resistance and Resilience to Tropical Cyclones,” in Science Advances, an academic journal that is published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The researchers’ findings in the study have reportedly provided insight into how our coastal ecosystems might respond to future storms, to which as anyone in the Gulf Coast region can attest, are always around the corner.

The study was co-authored by UL Lafayette’s Dr. Beth Stauffer, an associate professor of Biology, and Dr. Kelly Robinson, an assistant professor of Biology. Dr. Christopher Patrick of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science led the research team for the study, whose whole team was made up of 23 scientists from 11 states, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico. The team’s study is a part of the National Science Foundation’s Hurricane Ecosystem Response Synthesis (HERS), and Dr. Stauffer is a co-principal investigator for the research coordination network.

This collaborative research coordination network aims to bring together research on how an ecosystem’s long-term or more recent environmental history might influence its response to subsequent storms. In addition to this, the network will also collaborate on researching how species traits such as reproductive potential, dispersal mode and distance, and physiological tolerance might explain certain patterns of resistance and resilience.

In their research, the team used both pre-storm monitoring surveys and post-storm monitoring surveys to examine the resilience and resistance of coastal ecosystems across 26 different storms. The 26 total storms used for the research team’s data were selected among those that had made landfall in the Northern Hemisphere of Earth between the years 1985 and 2018. The researchers set out to study the effects of such a wide array of storms in order to maximize the scope of their data.

When speaking on the widening of the research’s scope in the study, UL Lafayette’s Dr. Beth Stauffer said, “most hurricane-related research is done on a single-storm, single-system basis. So studies like this one are especially powerful in bringing together the results from that diverse research and finding more general rules for how ecosystems respond to hurricanes.”

In working on their study, researchers were able to document post-storm changes related to the distribution and abundance of living things such as oysters, fishes, mangrove plants, and microbes. Outside of these living things, researchers also documented the observed changes made to various ecosystems’ biochemistry such as salinity levels, nitrogen levels, and hydrography such as depth and shoreline position.

Additionally, the researchers were able to analyze, document, and gauge storm characteristics and impacts based on critical factors like maximum wind speed and rainfall rate. They were also able to consider four types of ecosystems in total: freshwater, saltwater, terrestrial, and wetland ecosystems.

In speaking on the benefits of analyzing multiple ecosystems, ULL’s Dr. Kelly Robinson said, “cross-ecosystem analyses help us understand the resilience and vulnerability of animals and plants that ultimately support recreational and commercial activities along our coasts. This study provides an important reference point against which we can measure the impacts on coastal ecosystems from future hurricanes, which are predicted to strengthen as oceans warm due to climate change.”

When it comes to understanding hurricanes in an effort to not only anticipate their arrival but to prepare on how to respond to them after they pass, the regional expertise of two researchers from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette cannot be underestimated nor undervalued.

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