Federal lawsuit targets Louisiana coastal restoration project

(CN) — A pair of Louisiana seafood processors joined conservationists and a local resident Thursday to file a federal complaint against the ambitious Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project, a $2.9 billion effort to combat the state’s trend of coastal land loss. 

In the complaint, the plaintiffs claim the project “will have serious, permanent, adverse impacts on [the basin’s] resources,” including its species diversity, its economy and human health. 

They say that in authorizing the project, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated administrative procedures and the National Environmental Policy Review Act (NEPA), while federal agencies conducting environmental reviews violated the Endangered Species Act. 

The project, which is primarily funded with $2.26 billion from Natural Resource Damage Assessment funds from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement, broke ground in August 2023. A joint effort of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, it will feature a controlled gate structure through the river’s existing levee connected to a new, approximately 2-mile manmade channel with an outfall structure in the basin. 

It will be capable of diverting water at the rate of 75,000 cubic feet per second and rebuild an area of roughly 21 square miles over the first 50 years. Construction is expected to take five years.

In November, the project became the target of a separate lawsuit in state court, where Plaquemines Parish sued the state over concerns of increased flooding and insurance implications. 

The plaintiffs in the federal case — Jurisich Oysters LLC and Ameripure Processing Inc., along with resident and commercial fisherman Matthew Tesvich and Berkeley, California-based nonprofit Earth Island Institute — filed a notice of intent to sue the same month.

In Thursday’s complaint, they claim the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “ignored highly relevant data bearing directly on its analysis of the direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts of the [project],” while failing to ensure the accuracy of models and “undermining” the project’s final environmental impact statement. The Corps further failed to account for contaminant levels in the diverted sediment and its impacts on wildlife, the plaintiffs say.

They claim the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service failed to properly evaluate how the project will affect protected or endangered species of sea turtles and shore birds, shellfish and raptors. They seek declaratory judgment and an injunction enjoining the defendants from taking further action to implement the project. 

In a statement through Earth Island Institute on Thursday, plaintiff Mitch Jurisich said the project is “the single biggest man-made disaster to ever hit Louisiana fisheries.” 

“We rebounded after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster,” he added. “We won’t rebound from this. It will wipe out fisheries, our culture, and our way of life. It will be over for my son and grandchild.”

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