WaterMarks Interview with Garret Graves
Plans Customize Protection, Restoration for Region of Cheniers

Garret Graves is the director of Louisiana's Governor's Office of Coastal Activities

WaterMarks: The landscape of Louisiana’s Chenier Plain is distinctly different from the imperiled Mississippi delta region to the east. Are the southwestern coastal parishes also in jeopardy?

Graves: Although less visible and dramatic than land loss problems in the wetlands to the east, the ecological threats facing Louisiana’s southwestern coastal parishes are no less serious. Saltwater intrusion is the region’s most critical problem. Navigation channels and oil and gas pipeline canals have allowed sea water to infiltrate the hydrologic system. Increased levels of salinity in marshes, freshwater lakes, ground water and aquifers damage wetlands and pose problems for the area’s historical practices of growing rice, cattle and crawfish. And with natural drainage patterns disrupted, storm surges such as those caused by Hurricane Rita can become trapped behind the cheniers, burning marsh vegetation and drenching the soil with salt.

WaterMarks: Are there ways to limit saltwater intrusion?

Graves: Certainly, and in our planning we are considering a variety of approaches. To reduce intrusion through our canals and waterways, we can employ a number of water control devices such as gates, locks and weirs. To protect against inundation from waves and storm surges, we can armor shorelines and use barriers such as raised highways and ridges along canal banks. We’re enacting policies to speed the removal of dam-forming debris that storms can leave behind. We might cut release channels from the region’s interior to accelerate drainage of surge waters following a storm. And we must safeguard our natural line of defense, the cheniers themselves.

WaterMarks: Do you mean that restoring cheniers could enhance hurricane protection?

Graves: Absolutely. Restoration and protection are complementary processes. Consider how a healthy marsh helps to shield a levee from erosion on a daily basis and is crucial to reducing surges and wave energy during storms. And during Hurricane Rita we saw how a rebuilt beach limited erosion of an adjacent chenier that was shielding inland marshes from storm surge. These are examples of how restoration can enhance protection.

But it works the other way, too. We can design protective structures to provide the hydrologic functions essential for restoration. For example, suppose we built a levee and wanted to restore a marsh to reduce erosion on its seaward side. By incorporating a gated, freshwater diversion in the levee structure, we could provide the flow of water necessary to nourish and maintain the marsh. In this single design we can derive both protective and restorative benefits.

Hurricane protection and coastal restoration are so closely connected that the state of Louisiana has combined the office responsible for hurricane protection, in the Louisiana Department of Transportation, with the office responsible for coastal restoration, in the Department of Natural Resources. Henceforth these functions will be conducted through the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority’s Implementation Team.

WaterMarks: Since the storms of 2005, has hurricane protection become a more prominent consideration in restoration planning for southwest Louisiana?

Graves: Those storms forced the public to pay more attention to hurricane protection. People had become comfortable with the level of risk they thought they were living with. Now they are more aware of the dangers of hurricanes and in public meetings are asking for more protection.

One thing we’re doing is looking at integrating different approaches to protection. For instance, the Dutch employ many different elements in their protective system. From preserving a wetland buffer to erecting protective structures, from regulating land use to enforcing building codes, their efforts combine to reach their standard for protection.

WaterMarks: Under the state master plan for coastal protection and restoration, what is proposed for southwest Louisiana?

Graves: Right now we’re using modeling to discover the region’s vulnerabilities and determine where structural protection is required and where nonstructural means of protection are preferable. The plan recommends levees in the population centers of Lake Charles and Sulphur, where there is critical oil and gas infrastructure. Possibly we’ll build a protective levee along the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Elsewhere we will elevate highways and raise spoil banks — ridges built along waterways from material dredged during channel maintenance. We’re looking at ways to enhance the protective functions of the natural cheniers, preserving their vegetative cover and reclaiming pits where sand has been mined.

We can draw on the experience of Rita to understand how to mitigate the effects of such a storm. Some solutions are relatively easy — for example, we can reduce saltwater impoundment by removing storm debris quickly. We can diminish property damage by elevating our homes and buildings. Everyone in southern Louisiana is realizing they must assume a greater role in personal protection.

WaterMarks: CWPPRA projects in southeastern Louisiana seem more numerous than in the southwestern region. Are the coastal parishes of the Chenier Plain receiving their fair share of protection and restoration dollars and activities?

Graves: We started recognizing problems in the Mississippi River Delta decades ago. Projects now under construction in southeastern parishes are the results of studies begun as early as the 1940s. Only later did we realize the environmental situation in the Chenier Plain also demanded our attention. The first comprehensive study of the southwestern coastal region began in 2005.

There are two facts about the progress of the new, integrated study that should encourage people in the region. First, we’ve already reduced the timeframe from an average of 10 years for a study to three years. In part this is the result of all that we’ve learned about coastal restoration in the southeastern parishes over the past half-century.

Second, we’re pushing the idea of spinning off individual recommendations. We can initiate action on individual components and accelerate work on portions of the plan without waiting for the entire study to be completed.

There are some folks who say that one region of coastal Louisiana is more important than another. We don’t view it that way. As a result of the storm season of 2005, the state recognized that it cannot provide disparate standards of protection for different areas of the coast. The method of achieving protection may vary — structural protection is best suited to densely populated areas whereas it is impractical in rural areas — but the state’s commitment to each area is equally strong.