Building Mid-Barataria diversion could mean billions in sales, hundreds of jobs, study says

Construction of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion could result in a boon in sales revenue, jobs and taxes for both Plaquemines Parish, where it is being built, and for the five-parish area surrounding it, a new study funded by a consortium of environmental groups says. 

However, commercial fishers in the area say the study’s failure to account for damage to their industry once the diversion is operating provides a skewed view of the economics associated with it.

The project’s construction could increase sales revenue in Plaquemines Parish by nearly $1.9 billion and by more than $2.8 billion in the region that includes New Orleans and Plaquemines, St. Bernard, Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes during the project’s five-year construction period, according to the new study by Loren Scott, LSU emeritus economics professor and head of his own consulting firm.

The study also found that spending would boost individual earnings in Plaquemines by a total of $308 million, increase the number of jobs in the parish by an average 540 per year during the construction period, and result in a $65.4 million increase in local taxes during that time.

For the five-parish region, individual earnings will increase by just over $1 billion over the five years, resulting in an average 3,095 additional jobs and additional taxes of $103.6 million, according to the study.

Scott pointed out that the increase in regional jobs was about a third of total jobs in Plaquemines Parish alone in April of this year. 

Scott said his estimates were based on the two-thirds of the $1.8 billion of diversion construction costs that are expected to be spent in the state, plus another $254 million that will be spent locally on mitigation projects for community residents and fisheries.

The project is estimated by the state Department of Environmental Quality to cost a total of $2.92 billion, with the additional non-construction costs including funds set aside for future contingencies, insurance, and land acquisition costs.

The community mitigation work will include building bulkheads around some communities, raising piers and docks in areas outside Plaquemines hurricane levees on the West Bank, and buyouts of some residents in those areas who prefer to leave. 

Fisheries mitigation will include construction of new oyster beds, improvements in shrimp and crab gear, and a marketing program. 

“Think about it as a big economic rock,” Scott said. “We’re going to drop that rock into a pond called the Plaquemines Parish economy. When the monies are spent on construction, there are people who work in the construction industry there who are then going to take their earnings, and they’re going to buy groceries at the grocery store, buy cars at car dealerships, movie theater tickets, etc.”

The study was commissioned by Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of national and local environmental groups supporting construction of the diversion. The organization is partly funded by the Walton Family Foundation. 

“The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is not only a foundational landscape-changing environmental project that will help protect our region against a changing future, but it also creates far-reaching economic opportunities for businesses and vital jobs for residents,” said Simone Maloz, the coalition’s campaign director. “This project enables Louisiana to transform one of its greatest challenges into an economic advantage.”

The report, however, does not address what will happen when the expected five-year construction period ends and most of those additional workers likely leave the area, Scott said. Operation of the diversion during its expected 50-year lifetime will only require a comparative handful of workers.

The report also does not directly address a variety of financial issues brought up by opponents of the project, including whether possible water level increases in the basin when the diversion is operating could cause unexpected local flooding costs in Plaquemines Parish.

And while the study does include the $54 million dedicated fishery industry mitigation, it does not address the damage expected to be suffered by commercial fisheries by the diversion’s freshwater. Commercial shrimpers and oyster fishers in the diversion area say it will force them out of business.

On the other hand, it also doesn’t address a number of potential post-construction benefits, including expected reduced flooding costs in West Bank communities resulting from lower water levels along levees, and potential improvements in freshwater-based recreational fishing tourism.

Both the long-term financial costs and benefits were addressed in a 2022 Army Corps of Engineers environmental impact statement that was completed as part of the awarding of federal construction permits to the state for the project. 

Also not directly addressed in the Scott study is the expected loss of more than 2,000 bottlenose dolphins likely to be killed by overexposure to freshwater when the diversion is opened. That loss is predicted in the Corps environmental statement, and part of the dollars set aside for mitigation are reserved for responses to sick and dead dolphins.

Diversion proponents note that the dolphins have migrated to that area because of dramatic land loss and saltwater intrusion — two issues the project seeks to address.   

Charter boat Capt. George Ricks, former president of the Save Louisiana Coalition and a longtime diversion opponent, said the study’s failure to estimate the “permanent loss of jobs in the fishing industry, plus negative economic impacts to restaurants and Plaquemines Parish as a whole post-construction, far outweigh any inflated economic figures these so-called environmental groups can produce.” 

“I think it’s very sad that these same groups have no regard or concern for the very same wildlife, ie bottlenose dolphin, that they professed concern for to get dollars during the BP oil spill,” he said. 

Neither officials with the state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, which is building the project, nor Plaquemines Parish President Keith Hinkley responded to requests for comments on the study. 

The diversion is being built near Ironton. Its two-mile-long concrete channel will funnel as much as 75,000 cubic feet per second of freshwater, sediment and nutrients into the Barataria Basin, which has been experiencing the state’s quickest loss of wetlands dating back to the 1930s.

According to the Corps environmental statement, the project will have created more than 20 square miles of new land at the end of its first 50 years of operation. 

Groundbreaking for the project was in June 2023, but the project was halted for several months earlier this year when Plaquemines Parish filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s beginning of construction without obtaining parish building permits. 

That lawsuit is awaiting action in a state court in Plaquemines Parish, though the state and the parish did agree in June to allow construction of some initial diversion features to resume.