NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana has officially canceled the $3 billion Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion—the largest single ecosystem restoration effort in U.S. history and a central pillar of the state’s Coastal Master Plan to fight catastrophic land loss.
Land Loss and Mid-Barataria Rationale
Louisiana’s coastal crisis is not new. Between 1932 and 2015, Louisiana lost over 2,000 square miles of land largely due to levee construction, canal cutting for industrial purposes, subsidence, and sea-level rise according to a report issued by The Data Center, a Southeast Louisiana nonprofit focused on regional data and analysis. The report, titled “Pathways to Prosperity Louisiana,” highlights how reduced sediment flow from the Mississippi River has contributed to this ongoing erosion.
The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project was conceived as a large-scale solution to this problem. The project was designed to channel sediment and freshwater from the Mississippi River into the Barataria Basin—an approximately 1.5-million-acre wetland area on the west bank of the river—helping to rebuild and sustain disappearing wetlands.
The Decision
On April 4, Governor Jeff Landry instructed the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) to pause the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project for 90 days.
“While Mid-Barataria has been presented as a cornerstone of Louisiana’s coastal master plan, the situation has changed significantly since its inception,” said Landry in his letter to the CPRA. “Projected costs have now ballooned beyond $3 billion — far exceeding the original budget and threatening to divert resources from other critical restoration projects.”
In 2016, the project was projected to cost approximately $1.5 billion. A significant portion of the expenses was expected to be covered by the $2.92 billion allocated from the more than $8 billion BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement.
Critics argue that abandoning the project over cost concerns ignores its long-term value in preventing even greater environmental and economic losses from continued land erosion.
The decision to cancel the project became official on July 17 when the Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group (TIG), the body responsible for overseeing the use of Deepwater Horizon Natural Resources Damages funds, announced that the project would not move forward.
“The state will lose up to 3,000 more square miles of land over the next 50 years without aggressive action to restore and protect the coast,” said the Data Center report.
Scot Pilié, a meteorologist at WGNO ABC26 in New Orleans and coastal restoration specialist, said “What a sad day for our state. We’re watching our wetlands disappear before our eyes while abandoning the only real hope we had for large-scale restoration and nourishment of the ecosystems that still remain. We desperately need projects like the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion to reconnect the Mississippi River to our nutrient-starved wetlands.”
Restore the Mississippi River Delta Weighs In
Actions taken by Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority since Governor Landry took office mark a sharp departure from the science-backed, publicly supported approach that has defined the state’s coastal restoration strategy, according to Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of national and local conservation groups which issued the following statement:
“In a complete abandonment of science-driven decision-making and public transparency, Governor Jeff Landry and his administration have pulled the plug on a fully funded, permitted, and under construction project designed to rebuild tens of thousands of acres of our collapsing coast. The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion represents decades of research, public engagement, and bipartisan support.
Today’s announcement by the TIG was the culmination of a year and a half-long campaign of misinformation and political arm-twisting by Governor Jeff Landry and his coastal team to undermine and finally kill the state’s largest ecosystem restoration project.
Mid-Barataria is more than a project—it represents a generational investment, paid for with the penalties of an environmental disaster. These dollars were meant to restore the coast, not settle a cancellation of contracts behind closed doors. The project’s cancellation means the state is throwing away more than $618 million intended to be spent to protect the coast’s culture, residents, and businesses.”
Possible Replacement Project
In place of Mid-Barataria, the state has revived discussion of a smaller sediment diversion near Myrtle Grove as a potential alternative. However, this project was previously dropped from the state’s master plan years ago due to poor performance in early modeling. Conservationists argue that returning to this concept lacks scientific basis and undermines public trust.
“Dredging is a short-term band-aid,” said meteorologist Scot Pilié. “It does nothing to reverse the long-term damage caused by cutting off the river’s natural ability to rebuild our swamps and marshes.”
Restore the Mississippi River Delta said, “A stopgap project with no data is not a solution. We need diversion designs backed by science—not politics. Coastal Louisiana is still in an accelerated land loss crisis, and the science remains clear: sediment diversions are essential to building and sustaining wetlands at scale. Any alternative must be grounded in rigorous evaluation, transparent public engagement, and a commitment to outcomes—not opinions and optics.
We remain as committed as ever to ensuring timely, large-scale restoration for Louisiana’s coast happens before it’s too late to turn the tide on our land loss crisis. Projects like Mid-Barataria – and the expertise and public vetting that accompanied it—are non-negotiable for Louisianians. Either we move ahead with urgency, or we all lose.
We call on our local, state and federal leaders to uphold the principles that have made Louisiana a global model for coastal restoration. We also urge the Louisiana TIG —charged with restoring the Gulf in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster—to provide a full public accounting of why it is allowing the Landry administration to walk away from a thoroughly vetted project under construction, already backed by more than half a billion dollars in oil spill settlement funds. The stakes are too high—and the lessons of Katrina, Rita and the Deepwater Horizon disaster too hard-fought—to retreat from solutions we know can work.”
About Restore the Mississippi River Delta
Restore the Mississippi River Delta is working to protect people, wildlife and jobs by reconnecting the river with its wetlands. As our region faces the crisis of land loss, we offer science-based solutions through a comprehensive approach to restoration. Composed of conservation, policy, science and outreach experts from Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation and Pontchartrain Conservancy, we are located in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Washington, D.C.; and around the United States. Learn more at MississippiRiverDelta.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.
