The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project remains on hold pending a lawsuit in Plaquemines Parish coast, but Louisiana’s lieutenant governor says he doesn’t see how the project will survive its legal challenge.
Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser, who formerly served as Plaquemines Parish president, says nothing good will come from the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project “other than the people who got rich off of it.” Nungesser says the latest reports suggest that the project will have a negative flood impact on coastal areas over the next 50 years.
“I can’t see how, when this goes through the court system, we can use BP money that was dedicated to repair the damage done by the oil spill when, by their own admission, it’s going to cause more flooding to Plaquemines Parish, irreversible damage to our seafood and our fisheries, kill the dolphins, (and) all the negative things they got waivers for by using political stroke to get these things done,” Nungesser said.
Nungesser told WWL’s Newell Normand that employees of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority are now “coming out of the woodwork” to denounce the plan after, according to Nungesser, they had been pressured not to criticize the Mid-Barataria Diversion Project by the previous administration.
Listen to Normand’s full interview with Nungesser below.