[StBernard] MRGO

[Westley Annis]

Corps of Engineers working on plan to close MRGO

6/10/2006, 3:33 p.m. CT
By MARY FOSTER 
The Associated Press  	 	


NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Congress' authorization of money to be spent by the Corps
of Engineers to develop a plan to close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet to
deep-draft shipping had environmentalists celebrating this weekend.
 
It's a first step, and it's a tremendous step," Carlton Dufrechou, executive
director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said Saturday. 
 
Congress last month authorized $3.5 million to draw up a plan to close the
controversial channel, known locally as "Mr. Go", at least to deep-draft
shipping.
"That's like saying we want to build a house," said Adam Sharp,
communications director for Sen. Mary Landrieu. "We haven't built the house
yet, but we've commissioned the blue print and you don't do that unless you
plan to build."
 
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet has been a thorny issue for years because
it has destroyed marsh and cypress swamps since it was built in 1963. The
76-mile channel was dug as a short cut to New Orleans, but today few
oceangoing ships use the channel.
 
St. Bernard officials blamed the channel for much of the flooding in the
parish when Katrina slammed into the state.
 
"It's the will of congress that Mr. Go be closed, but we can't do that
without knowing what the impact will be," Sharp said. "The Corps in six
months must present a list of what projects must be authorized to close it
and protect the wetlands."
Mr. Go is used by about 650 deep-draft ships a year.
 
But salt water brought into the marshes and wakes from cargo ships have
destroyed 18,000 acres of land and 1,500 of cypress swamp, according to the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which dredged it.
 
"My appreciation is that there will be no more dredging of Mr. Go and the
deep draft passage is finished once the silt fills it in," Dufrechou said.
In the past the channel has been dredged to 36 feet. Since the Aug. 29
hurricane, sections of it are only 23 feet deep, Dufrechou said.
 
"As far as the channel filling up, that's not going to happen," Dufrechou
said. "They've dredged more from there than they dredged to build the Panama
Canal. To completely fill it in would be more than a billion dollars."
 
The ship channel is blamed for eroding one acre of wetlands every 36 hours.
"Now we've finally got a chance to restore the coast," Dufrechou said. "With
it being dredged and used by deep draft ships there was no chance to restore
the coast south of New Orleans."