Coastal plan spans decades

BATON ROUGE � A proposed master plan for protecting and restoring Louisiana's coast won't make everybody happy, says Garret Graves, chairman of state panel charged with the task, but it's a plan that can protect the state from further ruin from storms.

However, said Graves, the chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, it's going to take 50 years to complete all the projects in it.

Members of the CPRA got a detailed look at the study, which is an update of one done five years ago with new data gathered by scientists and information on projects done in the past five years.

"This is the most extensive thing we've done," Graves said after a review of the plan presented by Kirk Rhineheart, head of the CPRA planning division.

"This is a draft plan, and I'm not going to sit here and say it's perfect."

The study is based on the best science available.

Rhineheart said now the next step is to take the draft to the communities that are affected and get another round of input. Then a final report will be presented to CPRA for approval and then to the Legislature for consideration in the session that begins March 12.

The plan outlines $50 billion worth of projects to be completed over 50 years.

The state and federal governments share the cost of the 145 projects all along the Louisiana coast that are deigned to "provide some level of protection for every coastal community," the plan states.

The plan calls for restoring wetlands, shorelines, headlands and barrier islands that once provided protection from storms but have eroded.

A U.S. Geologic Survey examination of ongoing restoration projects found that they are working to restore lost coastline.

But it's not enough to eliminate the loss of land equivalent to a football field every 20 minutes, Rhineheart said.

Not long ago, the loss was estimated at a football field every 16 minutes or less.

"Since the 1930s, we've lost 1,900 square miles of land," Graves said The USGS also drew up new maps showing that at the current rates of erosion and subsidence, much of what is coastal Louisiana would be open water by 2060.