http://www.insiderexclusive.com/show-content/396-us-army-corp-of-engineers-mrgo-disaster--part-1.html
In 1957, the American Shipping Industry sold the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers "a billion dollar - "pig in a poke".... the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Project or MRGO. A Multi-Billion Dollar Engineering Project...On the scale of the Panama Canal, costing Billions of Dollars.... A superhighway for marine commerce.... A navigational channel to directly connect the Gulf of Mexico to the city of New Orleans. Right here in the good ole USA....including building levees that maintain the highway to transport goods worldwide..... while providing flood protection for those living along its banks.
WHY?..... Because it would benefit the shipping industry...and of course .....the state of Louisiana!
The new passage was supposed to shorten a ship's journey to the Crescent City by 40 miles, and provide an economic boon to St. Bernard, the parish most impacted by the project. The cost? A mere $95 MILLION. That's $95 Million in 1957 dollars...
But in 1958, a report published by the Department of the Interior, warned that "excavation of the (MRGO) could result in major ecological change with widespread and severe ecological consequences."
Too bad no one was listening.
The MRGO certainly provided access. Not just to ships, however,.... which largely ignored it. But It also provided access to saltwater! The Gulf of Mexico now had direct access into some of the most productive marshes and wetlands in the entire United States.
In short order, it killed more than 11,000 acres of cypress swamps and turned over 19,000 acres of brackish marsh into saline marsh. Vegetation died. Wildlife died off ......or disappeared.
The freshwater marshes that once supported over a quarter million wintering ducks and provided an annual fur harvest of over 650,000 animals vanished due to saltwater intrusion.
A recent report jointly sponsored by the LSU Agricultural Center, Sea Grant and Coastal Wetlands and Restoration, , said...
"The New Orleans District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers speculates that the loss of land in the area approaches nearly 3,400 acres of fresh/intermediate marsh. More than 10,300 acres of brackish marsh, 4,200 acres of saline marsh and 1,500 acres of cypress swamps and levee forests have been destroyed or severely altered."
