Coast 2050: A Vision of the Future

Louisiana began work in earnest to restore its coast in 1989 with the passage of Act 6 and in 1990 with passage of the Breaux Act, or CWPPRA (The Coastal Wetlands Planning Protection and Restoration Act). Since then, more than 80 restoration projects have been initiated or completed. We have gained the technical know-how, and, by working with our federal partners, we are cementing long-term partnerships as we build projects together.

If nothing is done, the loss to Louisiana by 2050 is phenomenal - more than 1,000 square miles of coast from Texas to Mississippi. But the aggressive strategies proposed in Coast 2050 can overcome almost all of that loss and ensure a coastal future for coming generations.

During the past 18 months, the Coast 2050 Plan was developed in partnership with the public. It is a technically sound strategic plan to sustain Louisiana’s coastal resources and to provide an integrated multiple-use approach to ecosystem management.

Coast 2050 has received unanimous approval from all 20 Louisiana coastal parishes, the federal Breaux Act (CWPPRA) Task Force, the State Wetlands Authority and various environmental organizations, including the Coalition to Save Coastal Louisiana. This approval is unprecedented.

The main strategies of the plan are watershed structural repair, such as restoration of ridges and barrier islands, and watershed management, such as river diversions and improved drainage. In making recommendations, the process did not view the number of coastal wetland acres saved as the only priority, but considered other resources as well, such as roads, levees, fish and wildlife resources, and public safety and navigation, in making recommendations.

The 2050 Approach

Economic Pulic Accountability Land Rights joining with Ecosystem Needs leads to Common Ground which leads to a Strategis Coastal Plan

The Breaux Act (CWPPRA) Task Force, the State Wetlands Authority and the Department of Natural Resources Coastal Zone Management Authority will establish it as a unifying strategic plan of action. It will become the CWPPRA restoration plan and Louisiana’s overall strategic coastal plan. Proposed projects will be measured against the strategies in the Coast 2050 Plan before being approved.

Using the Coast 2050 Plan as a guide, we could restore and maintain more than 90 percent of the coastal land existing today.

In one way or another, everyone in the nation will feel the enormous loss of land along Louisiana’s coast, and current restoration efforts will only prevent 22 percent of the land loss projected to occur within the next 50 years. However, we know that a comprehensive restoration program, using the Coast 2050 Plan as a guide, could restore and maintain more than 90 percent of the coastal land existing today.

The price tag is $14 billion to construct more than 500 projects that would be needed, but the price of infrastructure alone that would be lost is more than $150 billion.

Louisiana and America cannot afford to wait.

Some of the information in this testimony was taken from the preliminary final draft of Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana; the final draft of No Time to Lose, a report by the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana; and reports written by Dr. Donald W. Davis, administrator, Louisiana Applied Oil Spill Research and Development Program.