Environment

Corps puts barge gate through its paces — successfully; agrees to operate it

Problems dogged a year-long effort to close and open the gate successfully.

By Bob Marshall May 23, 2013

Video: Bob Marshall interviews experts about coastal loss

On the panel: John Barry, David Muth, Anne Rolfes, Kerry St. Pé and Aaron Viles.

By Steve Myers May 22, 2013

30 years of time-lapse satellite images show coastal Louisiana wasting away

Time-lapse images illustrate what we knew was happening: Over 30 years, islands and beaches have moved north, channels have widened, and marshes have turned to open water without a blade of brass for miles. But they also show portions of the coast growing, reinvigorated by restoration projects.

Opinion By Bob Marshall May 21, 2013

Chat replay: Bob Marshall discusses challenges facing coastal Louisiana

Is it too late to save southeastern Louisiana from the encroaching Gulf? Pose your questions and opinions.

By Steve Myers May 20, 2013

Coastal restoration efforts complicated by lack of plan for Mississippi River

During a drought in August 2012, a towboat and barges ran aground on the Mississippi River near Greenville, Miss. This satellite image (rotated so that north is to the left) shows a large sandbar on the western side of the river. Strings of barges, each up to 1,000 feet long, anchored on the east side of the river, wait for clearance to move north or south. In a drought like this, no one has the authority to determine which would have priority on the river: shipping or sediment diversions to rebuild the coast.

Though the river is crucial to the economic and environmental well-being of 31 states, there's no plan to manage competing uses of the river water. Shipping companies, municipal water supplies, industrial plants and coastal restoration projects all need water. How will we decide who gets what?

By Bob Marshall May 14, 2013 2 comments

Tricky ‘barge gate’ on Lake Borgne is closed and opened successfully — almost

Congress may require the U.S. Army Corps — rather than the local flood authority — to operate the gate.

By Bob Marshall May 9, 2013

Historic study to find out what the Mississippi River really carries to help coastal restoration

This image from spring 2001 shows the plume of sediment pouring from the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. More sediment would make it downstream if so much water weren't already diverted by the Old River Control Structure upstream of Baton Rouge and other outlets, natural and manmade.

Less than half of the water, and just 19 percent of the sediments, carried in the Mississippi River past the Atchafalaya make it to the Gulf. The finding casts new light on the potential of diversions to create land in adjacent basins — a key strategy in the state's $50 billion plan to save southeast Louisiana from washing away.

By Bob Marshall May 8, 2013

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