Freshwater bill draws praise, ire

How much freshwater should be diverted to areas long ago turned to saltwater?

A bill proposed by Rep. Joe Harrison, R-Napoleonville, would mandate that any freshwater diversion project in Louisiana be halted if it raises salinity levels of water to a point where the state’s commercial or recreational fisheries will be negatively affected.

Many coastal restoration advocates say freshwater diversion provides an important means of undoing what years of unchecked intrusion by the Gulf of Mexico has done to erode marshes and forests that protected against the effects of hurricanes and their storm surge.

But some commercial fishermen and others in the seafood industry question that approach, fearing the effect lowered salt levels will have on shrimp, oysters and other species.

Harrison, while a long-term member of Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, was at clear loggerheads with chairman Garret Graves and other members – the majority – who were bullish on freshwater diversion canals.

The bill would put the legislator’s the idea that unchecked freshwater diversion projects pose too much of a threat to the seafood industry into action. Harrison claims that his opposition to diversion was a key element of his removal from the CPRA itself.

“I am not going to allow them with their junk science to say this will not destroy the marsh area,” he said. “It is counterproductive to what we are trying to do. It would move all of our seafood east and west, toward Mississippi on one side and Texas on the other.”

“I think it is a great idea and should have been considered a long time ago,” Sarah Voisin of Motivatit Seafood in Houma, a leading purveyor of local oysters, said of Harrison’s HB 810, introduced for this legislative session. “Salinity is a huge issue for oysters. We have some areas that area no longer fruitful or as wonderful as they used to be because of the salinity changes and they are still not OK to this day.”

Harrison’s bill additionally provides for notice to be given whenever a diversion plan is to be implemented with a summary indicting “any change to the 5 parts per thousand salinity line impacted by the plan.”

While recognizing that salinity drops could clear areas where he fishes for certain prized species like redfish and speckled trout, charter captain Stu Scheer, of Houma, opposes the bill, believing that diversion projects should operate unfettered if the coast is to be saved.

“Is freshwater going to run some shrimp and oysters off? Yes. But in many cases these are places where the shrimp and oysters weren’t there 40 years ago. In 1971 in Lake Boudreaux, there were no shrimp there. But the saltwater has pushed all the way to Houma. We are catching trout and they are catching shrimp and there are oysters where they were not before the line pushed.”

In the Terrebone Basin, marsh and land are being eaten away by saltwater as if by Pacman, Scheer said. Diversion from the Atchafalaya River and adjoining waterways into the Terrebonne ecosystem is among the goals Scheer and other diversion backers say will rebuild lost land and protect current lands from going under in years to come.

Commercial fishing interests are not opposed to coastal restoration. But they prefer methods of doing so that will not impact species, such as introduction of sediment.

Redirecting sediment, while favored for some projects, is not seen by coastal advocates as viable for widespread operations because of its cost.

Fishermen counter that the cost of wiping out whole populations of oysters and other target species also courts great cost.

Opposition is not to diversion in and of itself, but at such levels as to cause ecological disruption at a scale greater than an ecosystem can handle.

“It will destroy the land before it ever builds it,” Voisin said of unchecked diversion. “If you are going to pump freshwater into the marshes and the estuaries, you are going to kill them. They are going to die.”

Oystermen, Voisin noted, have worked with officials on determining salt levels, not wanting them too high because while OK for oysters, high salt content also attracts predators.

Nonetheless, Scheer and other freshwater diversion stalwarts say Harrison’s bill, if made into law, will unnecessarily hobble projects.

“Just look at La. 56,” Scheer said, referring to the lone highway that runs through Chauvin and Cocodrie, specifically referring to the length south of the Boudreaux Canal. “In 10 or 12 years, that road will be under water. Are we going to displace some shrimp or oysters or lose our homes and businesses? We have got to start somewhere and we need to start now.”