The New York Times reports that the state of Louisiana is planning to divert a large portion of the Mississippi River south of New Orleans in order to offset marshland loss in the Mississippi Delta.
This seems like a fabulous project, and an impending disaster all at the same time. I don’t really know which way to lean, because each time I’ve heard about river diversion, the projects have resulted in tragedy because the consequences of diversion were not well characterized.
So, naturally at first glance I was convinced this would be one of the biggest natural blunders committed by American scientists in quite some time, but I had to read further because marshland loss and over-development of the Delta are real problems in my opinion.
After further investigation, I was convinced this could be a good project. Probably accelerated by Hurricane Katrina floodwaters, the project would deposit 120 million tons of sediment (currently being wasted into the Gulf of Mexico) into the sediment-starved Mississippi Delta. Such sediment deposits would help protect against flooding from extreme weather events, and counteract land loss resulting from compacting of sediments not being naturally replenished by the flow of the Mississsippi. While such a project would certainly accrue substantial setbacks, scientists considered the advantages of such a project to outweigh the costs in the face of projected rises in sea levels and more belligerent behaviour from mother nature compounded by compacting of the present Delta sediment.
This is a fantastic scientific development and deserves the attention of not only the greater American public, but any others who are interested in the greater benefits accrued to those keen to protect wetland and natural watershed resources. While much of our current engineering mistakes are [unfortunately] mostly irreversible, we can avoid greater disaster by paying attention to the consequences of the destruction of essential natural resources, and the costs of actions to atone for our mistakes.