the construction of new, man-made diversions in Plaquemines Parish. The state would cut open the federal levee, creating powerful new distributaries of the Mississippi River that will flush sediment into the marsh, building land.
What the plan would actually do
it would benefit the many. It would also harm the few.
resolving a tragedy of the commons
The marsh defends 17 percent of the nation’s crude-oil production; 8 percent of its natural-gas reserves; a port connected to more than half of the nation’s oil-refining capacity; the city of New Orleans and its port; the homes of more than 1.5 million people; and the integrity of the lower Mississippi River, which conveys nearly 40 percent of the nation’s agricultural exports.
Fossil fuel resources, housing and agricultural exports are the critical infrastructures that the coastline protects
the coast’s first line of defense against the ouroboric perils of hurricanes and sea-level rise
Why this particular piece of land is important to broader contexts
rises because of global warming, the coastal marsh, scored by oil-and-gas canals and starved of fresh sediment by the encasement of the Mississippi River and the damming of its upriver tributaries, subsides unmitigated
Causes of degradation
atrophied
another reason something has to be done
withered to almost half its original size
Describes why something has to be done
designed to build tens of thousands of acres of new land, preserve what remains and protect the coast from hurricanes and sea-level rise
More detailed goals of the plan
$50 billion
states budget
to manage the coast’s furious retreat from the Gulf of Mexico
Goal of the states plan