Guest column: Planned diversion returns to the delta

Disaster and rebirth is a story as old as the Mississippi River Delta itself.

My family has lived in that cycle for generations. After the 1915 hurricane, they spent three weeks on the dike, the only high ground, as their cattle and rice crops washed away. Life was hard, but it was also the land of plenty. They hunted, fished and grew rice, indigo and oranges for their homemade wine, which packed a punch.

According to my mother, Ruth Fertel, who would later found Ruth’s Chris Steak House, “during the Depression, we never knew we were poor. There was always plenty of food for the taking.” That pantry provided the enormous Thanksgiving spreads, with Mom’s famous oyster dressing in the middle.

The delta has also sacrificed itself for the good of the entire country.

After the epic flood of 1927, the Army Corps of Engineers channelized the Mississippi River to improve navigation while avoiding the costs of dredging. But the dikes built for that purpose deprived the swamp of the alluvial silt that has nourished it for thousands of years. Our swamps have been starved of their sedimentary lifeblood and are now sinking into the Gulf.

To make matters worse, oil and gas companies dug nearly 10,000 miles of canals along the coast, largely ignoring their contractual obligation to refill the canals when they were no longer in use. The channels remained open, bringing salt water deep into the wetlands, killing marsh grasses and encouraging tidal and wave action that eroded the banks.

Nowadays we lose a football field every 100 minutes. We have already lost the size of the state of Delaware since the 1930s.

As much of America quickly learned after the BP oil spill, the Bird’s Foot Delta of the Mississippi and the surrounding swamps of Plaquemines Parish fuel the foods that grace the tables of New Orleans’ world-famous restaurants, and much of the seafood that Americans eat . . Lots of those famous Maryland blue crabs? They now come from our delta.

My mother grew up in the small downstream community of Happy Jack. She founded her restaurant in 1965 when she bought a small 17-table steakhouse in New Orleans from Chris Matulich, who also had roots in Plaquemines.

The roots of our Plaquemines grow deep. But for decades they have been washed away.

In light of this crisis, the only areas of coastal Louisiana that are consistently building land are places reconnected to rivers, such as Neptune Pass on the East Bank of Plaquemines Parish. Starting as a small canal, the pass now diverts 16% of the river’s flow at a flow rate five times that of the Hudson River. At Neptune, the river builds solid land and creates abundant habitat for the hundreds of species of birds, fish, mammals and other critters that make this place so special.

Now we have another chance to renew the delta. The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion is a unique restoration project that uses engineering with nature to strategically reconnect the Mississippi River with the Barataria Basin west of the river. Rather than dredging, the project mimics the natural processes that originally built our coast. It addresses the root cause of much of our land loss: sediment starvation.

The project represents one of the largest and most innovative coastal restoration efforts in U.S. history and promises to create and maintain up to 26,000 acres of wetlands. It will support stronger, more resilient wetlands and create healthier habitats for the watershed’s wide variety of aquatic species and wildlife. The diversion will increase storm surge protection that buffers nearby communities and will provide a substantial economic boost to surrounding parishes.

As more land has been eroded, there is less agriculture for trucks that serve the city: tomatoes, oranges and livestock. The future of all our shellfish and fisheries – shrimp, oysters, redfish, pompano, speckled trout – depends on the restoration of the delta marshes. Without the buffer against hurricane storms that the wetlands provide, New Orleans’s longevity is in jeopardy.

There is too much at stake – for Louisiana and the nation – and we have no more time to waste.