Posted on May 13, 2026
The latest news on Louisiana’s coastal land loss involves a tale of two studies, but the can-do attitudes of a group of volunteers insist that the worst of times can still be avoided.
Count us on the side of the volunteers.
The first study offers a rather apocalyptic view for southeastern Louisiana. Tulane coastal geologist Torbjörn Törnqvist is the lead author for an interdisciplinary team that concludes that entire coastal communities, including the whole population of the city of New Orleans, will need to relocate within about 200 years because of rising sea levels. The study says the Crescent City will become “physically impossible” to defend, even with floodwalls and levees.
We aren’t buying the inevitability of that conclusion. Not only would abandoning the city be unfeasible, the very idea of giving up on our coast is unfathomable. Nonetheless, the very existence of such pessimism from distinguished scientists makes it more urgent than ever that local, state and federal authorities, and indeed the entire populace, redouble all efforts to mitigate the risks. Marsh and coastland protection and replenishment should move even higher on our list of priorities. Now is not the time for defeatist doomsday prophecies. Let’s get to work.
In that light, state and local officials should be fighting against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to freeze already-begun studies of the feasibility of home-elevation projects in three places: the Lafitte area, along the Amite River and in Tangipahoa Parish. These initiatives are part of thousands of voluntary home elevations already approved statewide under various flood protection efforts.
The Corps is trying to decide whether such home elevations are part of its mission. Reassessments like that are fine. What doesn’t make sense, though, is pausing studies that already are near completion. Whether or not the Corps decides actually to do the home elevation work, it still should finish compiling the data so that homeowners and policymakers will be able to adjudge whether the elevations make sense. Why waste the money already spent on the studies?
Amid the daunting predictions from the Tulane-led report and the Corps’ inexplicable decision to pause its studies, there is, however, one piece of good coastal-related news.
In six days last month, a team of volunteers for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana placed an astonishing 550,000 pounds of oyster shells to create a “living shoreline” at the edge of the marsh closest to the Chandeleur Islands. They also planted 4,000 mangroves.
They did this near, and in conjunction with, a 12-mile concrete breakwater built by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. These are the sorts of projects that, little by little, might slow erosion and help the state avoid the sort of catastrophe predicted by geologist Törnqvist and his team.
The living shoreline effort is admirable. It should inspire all of us, and our public officials, to keep devoting time and money to the cause of coastal restoration.
