Financial Benefits of Short-lived Coastal Restoration Aren’t Clear

As the state prepares a required five-year update to its long-term Coastal Master Plan, new research has revived three questions that some experts have had for years. The Lens is looking at each question individually this week. Today:

Is it worth investing $90 billion in wetlands that might be gone 40 years later?

The logic behind Louisiana’s 50-year vision for coastal survival has always been the claim it could build more wetlands than the Gulf could consume during that time period.

But with projections now showing sea level rising dramatically beyond that 50-year window in the Coastal Master Plan this question is increasingly being asked: Is it wise to bet your future on wetlands that may survive the Gulf for only 30 years after they are built – or should that money be invested in building a longer-term future?

As with most questions about a plan facing so many uncontrollable variables, the answer to this one isn’t simple.

And it’s more than a $64,000 question. What started out as a $50 billion plan is now projected to cost at least $92 billion.

Advocates for the longer-term view contend that abandoning the lower coast and moving communities and businesses will be painful in the short run, but provides more certainty the state will have a viable coastline in the next century.

Those favoring the 50-year time frame point to the many uncertainties surrounding the long-term predictions of sea level rise: What if after all the social and economic disruption, the worst-case never happens?

But they also make this point: The projects may well pay for themselves even if they have a life of only 30 to 40 years beyond 2061.

“There is value to the state both in fisheries production and attenuated storm surge that has to be counted during the decades those new wetlands are in service,” said Kyle Graham, former executive director of the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.

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Taxonomy

• Environment
• Coastal