Proposal to divert the mighty Mississippi
The Mississippi River delta. (Credit: Herkie. Some rights reserved.)
Robert Twilley: We can manage the Mississippi River properly, keep navigation effective, which is so important to the nation, but at the same time build a footprint that we need for a more sustainable coastal delta.
That’s oceanographer Robert Twilley of Louisiana State University. He’s talking about diverting the Mississippi River to the west in order to rebuild the coast ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. Whether that can be done remains an open question.
Robert Twilley: The number one issue that we get when we talk about restoration of coastal Louisiana is, with increasing sea level rise, with climate change, you cannot build a sustainable, self-maintaining deltaic landscape. We have shown here today you can.
Twilley and colleagues presented findings in 2008 of a study that looked at diverting water and sediment with concrete channels. Right now, Mississippi River sediments end up in the Gulf of Mexico. The new plan could create, Twilley estimates, 700 square kilometers of wetland over the coming century.
Robert Twilley: It is doable and it’s sustainable with managing the river for the next 100 years.
Although the plan is in its early stages, Twilley predicts big changes for the Mississippi delta of the future, an area that today sees 20 percent by weight of all goods moving through the U.S.
Robert Twilley: We are not suggesting at all that that either be reduced or that we want any kind of system that would jeopardize that economic activity. What we are looking at is a very different conformation of the landscape that is sustainable. It will be in very different shape.
