Plenary Session for the 2009 Southern Division Meeting
Resurrection of the Bayou People, 2008 A.D.: Wetlands, Hurricanes, and Restoration
Kerry St. Pé, Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program
The entire 4.2 million acre region between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers was established as the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary in 1990 by congressional action under Section 320 of the Clean Water Act. National Estuaries are areas of special national significance that are unusually threatened by multiple and complex environmental issues. The programs created under this act are charged with developing comprehensive plans that are firmly based upon science, using a consensus-driven approach with broad stakeholder involvement to restore the threatened region. Currently there are 28 National Estuary Programs (NEPs) in the United States.
The unique cultural mix and the incredible biological productivity of the Barataria-Terrebonne region are both products of the Mississippi River. The rich mix of flora and fauna, the oil and gas, and the very land that supports, protects, and sustains the region’s communities and infrastructure are resultant of the actions of the deltaic processes of a river system that drains two-thirds of the United States. The culture of the region and its direct dependence on the productivity of the region has remained relatively undiluted largely because of the population’s tendency to remain in the region for multi-generational time spans.
Due largely to regional and watershed-level human impacts to the hydrology of the Mississippi River and changes to the ecology of the delta, the Barataria-Terrebonne system is suffering from a level of wetland loss that is greater than any other in the world. In addition to the inevitable collapse of the fisheries in the region, the loss of coastal landscape features is threatening surface water sources as saline water intrudes from the Gulf of Mexico towards the north into drinking water supplies. Oil and gas pipelines and entire communities have become far more susceptible to damage from hurricane storm surges and even from lesser climatic events. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008 devastated most of south Louisiana and resulted in an elevated national awareness and interest in Louisiana’s wetlands loss.
Restoration planning in Louisiana is not a new phenomenon. The comprehensive restoration plan developed by the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program was completed and approved by federal and state governments in 1996. The multiple stakeholder and broadly inclusive approach of the National Estuary Program resulted in an exceptionally high level of acceptance of the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP). A broad level of agreement to the 51 restoration strategies of the CCMP is an essential component to our ability to return to same level of acceptable risk experienced by the regionally prevalent bayou-dependant culture for generations.
One recently evaluated strategy that could successfully deliver sediments to areas that have changed from marshes to open water is one that would harvest sediments with dredges from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River beds and then direct the resulting sediment slurry to areas of need. The delivery of riverbed-harvested sediments would result in a much-needed, quicker rebuilding of wetlands without the huge water volumes normally needed to transport sediments to considerable distance. Diversions of harvested sediment would result in a lower magnitude of salinity regime change and fewer conflicts among the user groups that rely on the current fresh, brackish and saline bands of marsh types. Smaller volumes of water diversions would be needed to sustain the rebuilt wetland systems.
Kerry Michael St.Pé
Kerry St. Pé, for the past 11 years, has been the Executive Director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, a nationally recognized effort dedicated to preserving and restoring the 4.2 million-acre area between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers in Southeast, Louisiana. He worked for 23 years as a field biologist and regional coordinator for the Louisiana Departments of Wildlife and Fisheries and Environmental Quality and served as Interim Administrator of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) for 3 years. Kerry has conducted several major studies on the impacts of oilfield brine on Louisiana wetlands as well as studies of clam shell dredging in several Louisiana lakes. He serves on the Ocean Resource and Research Advisory Panel, a national advisory panel to the Secretary of the Navy and state and local advisory boards and is a frequent public speaker.
His wetland restoration work has been featured in the best selling book Bayou Farewell, The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast by Mike Tidwell and most recently in the PBS documentary, Washing Away: Losing Louisiana.
Kerry grew up in Port Sulphur, Louisiana during the ‘50s and ‘60s where the vast coastal marshes surrounding his home inspired him to become a marine biologist. He graduated from Nicholls State University in 1973.