2023-08-14 19:08:56
Southeast of New Orleans, new land is to be built in the Mississippi Delta. (AP / Gerald Herbert)
It is human intervention, such as the construction of flood control dikes, that is causing the loss of land on the Mississippi. This development is now to be reversed by a further intervention. The engineers want to integrate huge gates into a dike and build a canal. Some of the Mississippi’s sediment-laden water is to be diverted to what is known as the Barataria Basin. If the sediments are deposited, at least 50 square kilometers of land might emerge within 30 to 50 years.
The project, for which the foundation stone has now been laid, costs almost three billion dollars. The money comes from compensation payments from the oil company BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Conservationists fear that land reclamation will harm sensitive ecosystems in saltwater and brackish water when freshwater from the Mississippi flows in there.
This message was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk on August 15, 2023.
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