Editilla was very kind to stop in with us a few days back sharing a link to the Louisiana Coast Post which has been all over the folly of the sand berms. Let’s begin there:
Most residents of south Louisiana and the main stream media have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the fish story from Governor Jindal and his staff that we can dredge our way out of the B.Pocalypse by constructing sand barriers around our sinking deltaic coast. The sand berm sales job has clearly been an outstanding success.
But wait, a new Robert Young has now emerged as a media figure, not an actor playing a salesman but a coastal scientist playing the critical role of a policy advocate. This modern Robert Young, a coastal geology professor at Western Carolina University, has weighed in on Governor Jindal’s sand berm solution for saving our coast.
Professor Young wrote an Op/Ed Column in The New York Times on June 11 about this controversial and curious concept, the idea of preventing BP spoilage of the Mississippi River delta, not with shrink wrap but with sand berms. His column lists the very same concerns about going through with this project that have been expressed in LaCoastPost here; here; here; here; and here.
Rob well makes the case in the NYT. Here is a snippet:
The state understandably wants to move quickly and on a large scale, and no one wants to stop a project like this simply because it is spending too much of BP’s money. The problem, however, is that the berms won’t work as promised, and their construction will monopolize resources that could be used more effectively elsewhere. Continue reading “Making the case against the Jindal/Nungesser sand berm scheme: Rob Young appears in the New York Times. Slabbed highlights Billy Nungesser's double dealing with BP.”