Louisiana Coastal Impact Assistance Plan - Coastal Protection and ...

7. Infrastructure Projects to Mitigate Onshore OCS Impacts
The Plan includes supplemental funding for critically needed improvement of
Louisiana Highway 1 in the Port Fourchon-Leeville area, a vital link to one of
the most important OCS support complexes in the nation. In addition, the
Plan provides for State CIAP cost share for the repair of roads affected by
heavy OCS related vehicular traffic in Morgan City, New Iberia, and lower
Cameron Parish. All of those areas have experienced significantly increased
infrastructure costs as part of their support for OCS exploration and
production activities.
The restoration and conservation projects to be supported with the State of
Louisiana’s CIAP funds will have significant beneficial synergistic effects.
Those benefits will accrue via synergies among CIAP-funded projects, and
interactions among CIAP projects and those funded through other restoration
and conservation programs.
In the Pontchartrain Basin of southeastern Louisiana, significant synergistic
effects are expected from three sources: 1) the proposed reintroduction (at
Violet) of Mississippi River inflows into the Central Wetlands Complex and
adjacent wetlands (such as the Golden Triangle marshes), 2) the envisioned
project for enhanced wetland assimilation of secondarily treated municipal
wastewater and associated nutrients within that wetlands complex, and 3) the
potential reestablishment of cypress swamp in portions of that complex with
support from the CIAP Coastal Forest Conservation Initiative. Those
restoration efforts will also complement the proposed CIAP Lake Borgne
shoreline protection and marsh creation project on the eastern Orleans Land
Bridge between Alligator Point and Bayou Bienvenue, which is to be funded
by the State and Orleans Parish with CIAP funds. Finally, those projects will
support other shoreline protection projects along western Lake Borgne funded
through CWPPRA and supplemental appropriations from Congress being
administered by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Farther
upstream, yet still within the Pontchartrain Basin, the proposed Blind River
siphon will complement coastal forest conservation and restoration actions
implemented in the Maurepas Swamp complex via the proposed Coastal
Forest Conservation Initiative. The Blind River structure will divert
Mississippi River nutrients and fresh water to forested wetlands in that
complex, and is thus expected to complement the Hope Canal diversion into
the Maurepas Swamp, now being designed with CWPPRA funds.
Several proposed CIAP projects in the Barataria Basin would have synergistic
effects on the coastal habitats of the basin and the functions they serve. The
East Grand Terre Island restoration project is an essential feature of the
comprehensive restoration strategy for the Barataria Basin barrier shoreline
complex. That project will work in concert with the Barataria Basin Barrier
Shoreline Restoration near-term critical feature of the Louisiana Coastal Area
Ecosystem Restoration (LCA) Plan now awaiting Congressional authorization
and funding. A portion of the marsh to be created by the proposed Mississippi
6