Army Corps of Engineers, Climate Change, Environmental Impact Statements, Morganza to the Gulf

Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico – EIS Resources

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Review Plan for the Post Authorization Change Decision Document of the Mississippi River and Tributaries, Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Protection Project, LA – 2011

Final Independent External Peer Review Report for the Mississippi River and Tributaries, Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Protection Project, Louisiana – Post Authorization Change Decision Document – March 5, 2013

REVISED PROGRAMMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana – May 2013

Summary of the MORGANZA TO THE GULF OF MEXICO, LOUISIANA Final Post Authorization Change Report May 2013

Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana Post Authorization Change Report and Revised Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement USACE Response to Independent External Peer Review Revised 17 June 2013

 

Administration, GAO, National Flood Insurance Program, NFIP Finances, Reinsurance

FLOOD INSURANCE – Strategies for Increasing Private Sector Involvement

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FLOOD INSURANCE Strategies for Increasing Private Sector Involvement

What GAO Found

According to stakeholders with whom GAO spoke, several conditions must be present to increase private sector involvement in the sale of flood insurance. First, insurers need to be able to accurately assess risk to determine premium rates. For example, stakeholders told GAO that access to National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policy and claims data and upcoming improvements in private sector computer modeling could enable them to better assess risk. Second, insurers need to be able to charge premium rates that reflect the full estimated risk of potential flood losses while still allowing the companies to make a profit, as well as be able to decide which applicants they will insure. However, stakeholders said that such rates might seem unaffordable to many homeowners. Third, insurers need sufficient consumer participation to properly manage and diversify their risk, but stakeholders said that many property owners do not buy flood insurance because they may have an inaccurate perception of their risk of flooding.

Stakeholders identified several strategies that could help create conditions that would promote the sale of flood insurance by the private sector. For example,

  • NFIP charging full-risk rates. Congress could eliminate subsidized rates, charge all policyholders full-risk rates, and appropriate funding for a direct means-based subsidy to some policyholders. Stakeholders said full-risk NFIP rates would encourage private sector participation because they would be much closer to the rates private insurers would need to charge. The explicit subsidy would address affordability concerns, increase transparency, and reduce taxpayer costs depending on the extent and amount of the subsidy. The Biggert-Waters Act eliminates some subsidized rates, but some have proposed delaying these rate increases. Doing so could address affordability concerns, but would also delay addressing NFIP’s burden on taxpayers.
  • NFIP providing residual insurance. The federal government could also encourage private sector involvement by providing coverage for the highest-risk properties that the private sector is unwilling to insure. Providing residual coverage could increase the program’s exposure relative to the number of properties it insured, but NFIP would be insuring fewer properties, and charging adequate rates could reduce taxpayer costs.
  • NFIP as reinsurer. Alternatively, the federal government could serve as a reinsurer, charging a premium for assuming the risk of catastrophic losses. However, the cost of reinsurance premiums would likely be passed on to consumers, with higher rates potentially decreasing consumer participation.

Stakeholders identified other strategies including mandatory coverage requirements to ensure broad participation, NFIP purchasing reinsurance from the private sector rather than borrowing from the U.S. Treasury, and NFIP issuing catastrophe bonds to transfer risk to private investors. As the private sector increases its role in providing flood coverage, the federal government could collaborate with state and local governments to focus on other important roles, including promoting risk awareness among consumers, encouraging mitigation, enforcing building codes, overseeing land use agreements, and streamlining insurance regulations.

Clean Water Act, GAO

GAO – Making the Clean Water Act Work

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CLEAN WATER ACT – Changes Needed If Key EPA Program Is to Help Fulfill the Nation’s Water Quality Goals, GAO-14-80

What GAO Found

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the states each have responsibilities for developing and implementing pollution targets, known as total maximum daily loads (TMDL). EPA oversees states’ TMDL efforts by establishing in regulations minimum requirements TMDLs need for approval, providing funding, and furnishing technical assistance. States develop TMDLs and generally take the lead in implementing them by identifying pollutants that impair water quality and taking actions to reduce them.

Of about 50,000 TMDLs developed and approved, nearly 35,000 were approved more than 5 years ago, long enough for GAO to consider them long established. State officials GAO surveyed in its representative sample of 191 TMDLs reported that pollutants had been reduced in many waters, but few impaired water bodies have fully attained water quality standards.

The sample of 25 TMDLs reviewed by water resource experts GAO contacted seldom contained all features key to attaining water quality standards. According to the National Research Council and EPA, these features—some that are beyond the scope of EPA’s existing regulations—include identifying pollution-causing stressors and showing how addressing them would help attain such standards; specifying how and by whom TMDLs will be implemented; and ensuring periodic revisions as needed. The experts found, however, that 17 of 25 long-established TMDLs they reviewed did not show that addressing identified stressors would help attain water quality standards; 12 contained vague or no information on actions that need to be taken, or by whom, for implementation; and 15 did not contain features to help ensure that TMDLs are revised if need be. GAO’s review showed that EPA’s existing regulations do not explicitly require TMDLs to include these key features, and without such features in TMDLs—or in addition to TMDLs—impaired water bodies are unlikely to attain standards.

In response to GAO’s survey, state officials reported that long-established TMDLs generally do not exhibit factors most helpful for attaining water quality standards, particularly for nonpoint source pollution (e.g., farms and storm water runoff). The officials reported that landowner participation and adequate funding—factors they viewed as among the most helpful in implementing TMDLs—were not present in the implementation activities of at least two-thirds of long-established TMDLs, particularly those of nonpoint source TMDLs. Because the Clean Water Act addresses nonpoint source pollution largely through voluntary means, EPA does not have direct authority to compel landowners to take prescribed actions to reduce such pollution. In GAO’s survey, state officials knowledgeable about TMDLs reported that 83 percent of TMDLs have achieved their targets for point source pollution (e.g., factories) through permits but that 20 percent achieved their targets for nonpoint source pollution. In 1987, when the act was amended to cover such pollution, some Members of Congress indicated that this provision was a starting point, to be changed if reliance on voluntary approaches did not significantly improve water quality. More than 40 years after Congress passed the Clean Water Act, however, EPA reported that many of the nation’s waters are still impaired, and the goals of the act are not being met. Without changes to the act’s approach to nonpoint source pollution, the act’s goals are likely to remain unfulfilled.

Environmental Impact Statements, EPA, National Park Service, NEPA

General NEPA Resources

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White House Guidance

Guidance on the Applicability of E.O. 13807 to States with NEPA Assignment Authority Under the Surface Transportation Project Delivery Program (2019)

Statutes and Regulations

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, as amended

Council on Environmental Quality(CEQ) NEPA Regulations, 40 CFR 1500 through 1518 (2015)

Council on Environmental Quality (US). Environmental Quality: The First Annual Report of the Council on Environmental Quality Together with the President’s Message to Congress. US Government Printing Office, 1970.

General Documents

NEPA – Little Information Exists on NEPA Analyses. GAO (2014)

Corps of Engineers Manuals

These include manuals for doing environmental evaluations

Law Professors Letter to Congressional Committee Considering limiting NEPA (2018)

Columbia University Law School Climate Blog – NEPA

Articles and Guides to using NEPA

Slides – Introduction to NEPA

Introduction to NEPA – DOE/HOMER/ORNI (PPT)

ELI, A Citizen’s Guide to Using Federal Environmental Laws to Secure Environmental Justice (2002)

The National Park Service NEPA Handbook (2015)

This is an excellent and fairly detailed review of the law aimed at non-lawyers.

Council on Environmental Quality. “A Citizen’s guide to the NEPA: Having your voice heard.” (2007)

Department of Energy, Major Cases Interpreting The National Environmental Policy Act (2007)

Introduction to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the CEQ Regulations – PowerPoint

US Forest Service NEPA resource page

 EPA NEPA Resources

Rediscovering the national environmental Policy act:  Back to the Future

Ezekiel J. Williams & Kathy Schaeffer, “What Every Land Professional Should Know About NEPA,” 53 Rocky Mt. Min. L. Inst. 4-1 (2007)

An excellent introduction with oil and gas examples. (used with permission of the author)

Houck O., The US House of Representatives’ Task Force on NEPA: The Professors Speak. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER NEWS AND ANALYSIS. 2005;35(12):10895.

NEPA/HEPA LITIGATION CHECKLIST – Elijah Yip, Esq. CADES SCHUTTE LLP August 27, 2007.

The NEPA Lab – a blog on NEPA actions

National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) Education and Certificate Program Capstone Papers

 Cases

Columbia Law School Archive of NEPA cases related to climate change

Am. Rivers v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 2018 WL 3320870 (D.C. Cir. July 6, 2018).

Court rejects FONSI for relicensing hydroelectric plant.

Sierra Club v. Fed. Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 867 F.3d 1357 (D.C. Cir. 2017)

Court orders FERC to consider climate change as part of the EIS for pipeline permits.

STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE, et al., Plaintiffs, v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS (June 2017)

The Court found that the Corps should have done an EIS rather than an EA for the pipeline siting.

Center for Biological Diversity v. NHTSA, 538 F.3d 1172 (9th Cir. 2008)

The Court finds that the social cost of carbon – the impact of its effect on global warming is a necessary part of the EIS for the CAFE standards rule.

*Essays, Coastal Restoration Mythology

Why Coastal Restoration Cannot Succeed

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This  article goes to the heart of the problem. Sea level rise pushes the wetlands inland. If you have barriers, the wetlands drown. The only thing the coastal restoration folks care about is building levees, but if they only push for levees, the environmentalists will kill the projects. Thus the myth of coastal restoration had to be created – the idea that you could build wetlands in front of the levees so there would be wetlands left after you build the levees. The related myth is the myth of coastal erosion. Erosion implies you can put the dirt back There is very little erosion. Pretty much all of the land is still there, it is just covered with water. The drivers of this inundation are subsidence (with faulting just being one contributor) and sea level rise.

The key to understanding the problem is recognizing that the narrow strip between the dry land and the water – the intertidal zone where the wetlands live – is not the delta. The delta is the mountain of land built up over hundreds of millions of years and extending upriver for about 200 miles and out into the gulf to the edge of the continental shelf. That delta is always building, it is even building now. But the location of the intertidal zone is not determined by moment to moment sediment, but by relative sea level. The intertidal zone has been in about the same place for the last 5-6k years because sea level has been pretty constant. Even during that period, the river moves and lobes come and go, with the same basic area, as plants and sediment build up and then subside away locally. Look at the Chandeleur Islands. Those are not barrier islands, they are old edge of the coast. The land between them and the current coast was mostly lost long before there were dams and levees on the river.

Sea level has risen 8 inches in the last 100 years. That is really fast in geologic terms. Combined with subsidence, that completely accounts for the land loss – it has just be drowned. Look at those trees in open water, when they were seedlings, that was not open water. But if the land were eroding, the trees would fall over. Sea level will continue to rise and the rate will likely increase, and subsidence will continue. Just as in every past period of sea level rise, the intertidal zone will migrate inland, at least until it hits a levee. Piling up sand and dirt at the edges with diversions and dredges will make no difference. Look at the elevation map and the flooding from Isaac – the inland areas are sinking below sea level. To have a coast, you have to land behind it that is higher than sea level. When people point to the Dutch, they forget three things.

1)  The Dutch destroyed all their coastal wetlands a long time ago.

2)  The Dutch do not get hurricanes – their 10,000 storm would be a small hurricane.

3)  The Dutch do not have anywhere else to go, so they spend several % of their GDP on levees and just accept the environmental damage.

But for the subsidies from the National Flood Insurance Program, and the federal government making disasters good business, LA would have faced these realities long ago and would have been moving away from the coast since Betsy. Sadly, the likely course will be levees and diversions to destroy the wetlands, and then it will all get swept away because you really cannot hold back the ocean in the long term. All of this coastal restoration is very short term. The only question is whether ocean rise is high enough to wipe out the coast by 2100. There is no question that it will do it by 2200. The real question is whether we just wait for the disasters or whether we try to move inland in an orderly way and preserve some of the culture.

Assuming that NO is lucky and dodges hurricanes for another 40 years, the commercial insurance market, which is not subsidized by the feds, will slowly price most businesses out of the city and continue its economic death spiral. The only thing propping up the economy now is residual federal Katrina spending and debt financed projects like the hospital construction. When that is complete, the cost of paying the bonds will be joined by the huge operating loss of the facility.

Coastal Restoration, Coastal Restoration Mythology, LA Plan, Louisiana Coastal Restoration Authority

Louisiana Coastal Restoration Plans

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Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority

The Plans

Decision-making chronology for the lake Pontchartrain & vicinity hurricane protection project

Van Beek, Johannes L. “Recommendations for freshwater diversion to Louisiana estuaries east of the Mississippi River.” (1982).

Van Beek, Johannes L., and K. J. Meyer-Arendt. Louisiana’s eroding coastline: recommendations for protection. Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, 1982.

Panel, Louisiana Wetland Protection. “Saving Louisiana’s wetlands: the need for a long-term plan of action.” Washington, DC: Environmental Protection Agency (1987).

New Orleans Division U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Crisis On Louisiana’s Coast … America’s Loss (1991)

The call for a Master Plan

 The Original Plan – ( 1998)

Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana (1.97MB)

(original link)

Executive Summary (2.6 MB)

Appendix A – Federal/State/Local Partnership and Public Involvement (3.6 MB)
Appendix B -Technical Methods – All

Pages 1 – 50 (3.0 MB)
Pages 51 – 99 (3.6 MB)
Pages 100 – 178 (3.3 MB)

Appendix C – Region 1 Supplemental Information (1.5 MB)

Appendix D – Region 2 Supplemental Information (481 KB)

Appendix E – Region 3 Supplemental Information (1.6 MB)

Appendix F – Region 4 Supplemental Information (1.5 MB)

The 2009 Plan and Technical Analysis by the Corps

Final Report from the NRC Committee on the Review of the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration (LACPR) Program (2009)

Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast – 2012

Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection in Coastal Louisiana – 2015 Draft

Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast – 2017 Draft

Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast – 2017- Final

Louisiana’s Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast – 2017- Final – updated

Geologic History, Mississippi River

Historical Narrative And Topographical Description of Louisiana And West-Florida – 1784

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The delta has been changing since long before dams and levees. Thomas Hutchins (1730-1789) writes in 1784 at page 25:

Below New Orleans the land begins to be very low on both sides of the river across the country, and gradually declines as it approaches nearer to the sea. This point of land which in the treaty of peace in 1762, is mistaken for an island, is to all appearance of no long date; for in digging ever so little below the surface, you find water and great quantities of trees. The many beaches and breakers, as well as inlets, which arose out of the channel within the last half century, at the several mouths of the river, are convincing proofs that this peninsula was wholly formed in the same manner. And it is certain that when La Salle sailed down the Mississippi to the sea, the opening of that river was very different from what it is at present.

Historical Narrative And Topographical Description of Louisiana And West-Florida – 1784

An HISTORICAL NARRATIVE and TOPOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION of LOUISIANA, and WEST-FLORIDA, comprehending the RIVER MISSISSIPPI with its Principal Branches and Settlements, and the RIVERS PEARL, PASCAGOULA, MOBILE, PERDIDO, ESCAMBIA, CHACTAHATCHA, &c. , the CLIMATE, SOIL, and PRODUCE whether ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, or MINERAL, with directions for Sailing into all the Bays, Lakes, Harbours and Rivers on the North Side of the Gulf of Mexico, and for Navigating between the islands situated along that Coast, and ascending the Mississippi River, By THOMAS HUTCHINS, GEOGRAPHER TO THE UNITED STATES, PHILADELPHIA: printed for the author, and, sold by Robert Aitken, near the coffee-house, in Market-street.  M.DCC.LXXXIV.

 

Climate Change

West Bay Diversion and Shoaling

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Westbay Diversion Final Report:

Sharp, J.A., Little, C.D., Brown, G.L., Pratt, T.C., Heath, R.E., Hubbard, L.C., Pinkard, F., Martin, S.K., Clifton, N.D., Perkey, D.W. and Ganesh, N.B., 2013. West Bay sediment diversion effects.

One of the more well known projects of the Breaux Act was the West Bay Diversion (MR-03) and as evidenced by its name it was a freshwater diversion project. Lets recap what that means…

  • Freshwater Diversion

Uses gates or siphons to regulate the volume of water flow. Freshwater is channeled form a nearby river or water body into surrounding wetlands. This infusion of water, sediment, and nutrients helps slow saltwater intrusion and promotes the growth of a new marsh.

  • Sediment Diversion

This uncontrolled diversion promotes the creation of new marsh in place of open-water areas. A gap (called a crevasse) is cut into a river levee, allowing river water and sediment to flow into nearby wetlands and mimic natural land-building processes.

The West Bay Diversion was the first on the list of the Breaux Act’s list of projects. It was supposed to serve as a model example of how the Mississippi can quickly and effectively rebuild wetlands. In hind sight, let’s hope it is not. You may have noticed that I have been writing about the diversion in the past tense…this is because earlier this year, a decision was made by the Breaux Act Task Force to discontinue the diversion. When it was flowing at full capacity,  the diversion was supposed to allow 50,000 cubic ft/sec of river water to flow into West Bay, which is located just north of Pilottown and the Head of the Passes in Plaquemines Parish. However, in 2007-8 only about 27,000 cubic ft/sec were flowing into the bay.

So why was the poster-child of freshwater diversions canceled? Was it because it didn’t work? Not really. As the water flowing south in the Mississippi River came to the diversion it slowed the water speed and allowed sediment to drop out in the River. Why is this a bad thing? Well, because the West Bay Diversion was placed directly adjacent to a rarely-used shipping anchorage (parking spot). The slowing of the water was causing sediment to drop out in the anchorage, which cost the State millions of dollars every three years to dredge. This battle between restoration and navigation eventually lead to the demise of the West Bay Diversion.

Two years ago, the Army Corps alerted the Breaux Act task force that the diversion was silting in the anchorage and argued that because of the particular location of the anchorage they were not allowed to pay for that particular dredging. The Breaux Act originally worked out a compromise to pay for the dredging but they have now decided that the cost is no longer worth the reward. A recent study by the Corps found that they diversion was only responsible for the silting and the anchorage would be silting in either way, but nevertheless the project is done. Was this just a political battle between shipping and restoration? Sort of, but there is also a little line hidden in a recent Times-Picayune article that may have a bigger story.

“While the corps study concluded the diversion wasn’t entirely to blame for silting in the anchorage, it also found it wasn’t doing much to build land in West Bay.” Wait What?! Why wasn’t it working? The study was unclear but the lack of progress could have been because of sediment moving beyond the bay or because of Hurricanes. (hurricane Katrina passed almost directly over West Bay) Lack of sediment? What about that which was clogging the anchorage? Either way, the State felt that the Corps should pay for the dredging and vice-versa. When asked about the project, CPRA chairman Garrett Graves (LA representative to Breaux Act task force) said that keeping the diversion open and paying for the dredging was essentially wasting money and dirt that could be used elsewhere.

The failure of the West Bay diversion could be seen as an engineering mishap, but is it a sign of more to come with respect to the other freshwater diversions? The Breaux Act Task Force stated that the failure “was not a threat” to the seven other major freshwater diversions upstream. Hopefully the authorities can learn from the mishaps at West Bay and properly site and manage the existing and future diversions. However, the failure of West Bay is a huge blow to the possibility of diversions being the main force of restoration.

 

References

WestBayrGeomorphicAssessment1DModeling

Charles D. Little, Mississippi River Geomorphology & West Bay Diversion

chetn-vii-9
Andrus_thesis
WestBayDiversion ERDC Draft Report 25 Nov 2009
45930901
west bay presentation_Introduction

Storm surge

Sea Lake and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH)

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http://slosh.nws.noaa.gov/sloshPub/index.php?L=7#sloshDsp

Publications

Talks

 

    • Storm Surge 101 (ppt 9.6 Megs) (talk provided to Storm Surge workshop in Mobile AL, May 2011)

 

 

 

Climate modification, Geoengineering

Focus on Climate Engineering: Intentional Intervention in the Climate System

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http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/4/4/045101;jsessionid=625A3B85BB9B43FA186F913679972043.c3

INTRODUCTION

Part of Focus on Climate Engineering: Intentional Intervention in the Climate System

Geoengineering techniques for countering climate change have been receiving much press recently as a `Plan B’ if a global deal to tackle climate change is not agreed at the COP15 negotiations in Copenhagen this December. However, the field is controversial as the methods may have unforeseen consequences, potentially making temperatures rise in some regions or reducing rainfall, and many aspects remain under-researched.

This focus issue of Environmental Research Letters is a collection of research articles, invited by David Keith, University of Calgary, and Ken Caldeira, Carnegie Institution, that present and evaluate different methods for engineering the Earth’s climate. Not only do the letters in this issue highlight various methods of climate engineering but they also detail the arguments for and against climate engineering as a concept.

Further reading
Focus on Geoengineering at http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/subject/tag=geoengineering
IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science is an open-access proceedings service available atwww.iop.org/EJ/journal/ees

Focus on Climate Engineering: Intentional Intervention in the Climate System Contents

Modification of cirrus clouds to reduce global warming
David L Mitchell and William Finnegan

Climate engineering and the risk of rapid climate change
Andrew Ross and H Damon Matthews

Researching geoengineering: should not or could not?
Martin Bunzl

Of mongooses and mitigation: ecological analogues to geoengineering
H Damon Matthews and Sarah E Turner

Toward ethical norms and institutions for climate engineering research
David R Morrow, Robert E Kopp and Michael Oppenheimer

On the possible use of geoengineering to moderate specific climate change impacts
Michael C MacCracken

The impact of geoengineering aerosols on stratospheric temperature and ozone
P Heckendorn, D Weisenstein, S Fueglistaler, B P Luo, E Rozanov, M Schraner, L W Thomason and T Peter

The fate of the Greenland Ice Sheet in a geoengineered, high CO2 world
Peter J Irvine, Daniel J Lunt, Emma J Stone and Andy Ridgwell

Assessing the benefits of crop albedo bio-geoengineering
Joy S Singarayer, Andy Ridgwell and Peter Irvine

Can we control El Niño?
Douglas G MacMynowski

Geoengineering by cloud seeding: influence on sea ice and climate system
Philip J Rasch, John Latham and Chih-Chieh (Jack) Chen

 

Dates
Issue 4 (October-December 2009)