Louisiana Oil Spill Projects Increasingly Questioned by Scientists

Scientists and Louisiana leaders are once again clashing over a major engineering project designed to prevent spreading oil from reaching coastal wetlands. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers this week blocked a plan to construct rock dikes across major tidal inlets to Barataria Bay, concluding it would pose significant environmental risks, such as increased coastal erosion and the breaching of barrier islands during major storms. That decision stoked tensions among local officials who have supported ambitious spill plans — from rock barriers to sand berms — and have grown increasingly frustrated by resistance from scientists and the U.S. government. “No one can convince us that rocks in the water are more dangerous than oil,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Tuesday. But scientists insist that the risks of narrowing inlet channels with a rock barrier outweigh any benefits of stopping the oil. “This could really devastate our barrier shoreline, our first line of defense,” said Denise Reed, director of the New Orleans-based Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies. Earlier, numerous scientists criticized as ineffective a Louisiana plan to build a 45-mile sand berm to protect delta wetlands and barrier islands from the spill.