Farewell to Flipper?

Louisiana's coastal restoration plan is a dolphin killer

A bottlenose dolphin is a victim of painful skin lesions after major freshwater flooding in 2019. Photo: Institute of Marine Mammal Studies and Mississippi State University

Deep in the storm-battered bayou of one of Louisiana’s most productive fishing grounds, a major battle is playing out over how to fight coastal erosion that destroys marshland the size of a football field every 100 minutes.

After more than a decade of planning funded by BP oil spill money, the state of Louisiana received approval in 2022 from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies to build a $3-billion Mississippi River diversion project that would divert tens of millions of gallons of polluted river water every day into the brackish saltwater of the Gulf of Mexico’s Barataria Bay, 39 miles south of New Orleans. Engineers say the river water will carry land-building sediment that could counter rising seas fueled by climate change.

But there’s still a major problem blocking this project: the massive infusion of river water would alter Barataria Bay’s salinity levels, creating a lethal environment for valuable oyster and shrimp fishing grounds. Experts say it also would kill the Gulf Coast’s largest population of bottlenose dolphins, marine mammals that were already decimated by pollution from the 2010 BP oil disaster.

Despite these warnings, major environmental groups, including the Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation and the Audubon Society have supported and enabled this project to go forward. Much of the money financing their efforts have come from the Walton Family Foundation, one of the nation’s largest environmental funders, which has donated millions of dollars to nonprofit advocacy groups and news media outlets to promote the river diversion and restoration plan.

Marine mammal scientist Naomi Rose at the Animal Welfare Institute has closely followed the work of scientists studying the health of dolphins in the region, including those that were killed by the sudden influx of historic levels of fresh river water flooding in 2019. “I’m horrified by the way these dolphins will die. I can’t believe there isn’t a better way to save the coast,” she said.

The Mississippi River diversion project, part of a $50-billion Louisiana coastal restoration plan, has deeply divided the environmental community across the region, pitting state political leaders, engineering and construction firms as well as environmental groups against fishing communities, coastal experts and marine mammal scientists. Many experts worry that pouring billions of gallons of polluted river water into the marsh will destroy marine species such as shrimp and oysters that depend on the saltwater environment.

A knife in the MMPA

At the center of the coastal restoration controversy is the fate of Barataria Bay’s 2,000 dolphins, one of the largest dolphin populations along the Gulf Coast. Experts say the state has been disingenuous about the extent of damage the river diversions would have on marine mammals in the area. And scientists are highly critical of a state scheme that successfully lobbied Congress to issue a federal waiver for the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), granting Louisiana the legal authority to harm dolphin populations as part of its diversion plans. “They stuck a knife in the MMPA and wounded it very seriously,” Rose explained.

Experts predict that the proposed river diversion would harm dolphins much in the same way disastrous Gulf floods did in 2019. In numerous studies and webinars, scientists described how dolphins suffered a slow and painful death, starting with irritating skin lesions and infectious boils that in a matter of a few weeks erupted into skin ulcers and toxic brown mats on their bodies. Infections ate through their sensitive skin barriers, exposing internal organs to polluted freshwater. The result was cardiac damage, cerebral edema, kidney and liver poisoning, and ultimately septicemia and death, scientists reported.

Sentinels of the sea

As critical marine mammals at the top of the ocean food chain, bottlenose dolphins are sentinels of the sea. Experts say when dolphins are healthy, the ocean environment is healthy too. But right now, dolphins in Barataria Bay are decidedly unhealthy. According to studies, Barataria Bay dolphins still suffer from effects of the 2010 BP oil blowout, which spewed millions of gallons of Louisiana crude into the coastal environment of four states. Much of that oil, which cleanup crews sprayed with chemical dispersants that made it more toxic, washed into Barataria Bay.

I was there in May 2010, just weeks after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded 40 miles off the Louisiana coast. I caught a ride with a shrimp boat captain and saw with my own eyes the oil’s impact on small pods of dolphins near the shore. The petrochemical stench of thick brown clumps of oil was overwhelming, and the sounds of dolphins chuffing and choking as they swam though the oil was heartbreaking.

Many wonder why dolphins just don’t swim away from such a poisonous aquatic environment. According to experts, it’s not that easy. Bottlenose dolphins are extremely territorial, because they prefer to stay where they are born and bred. The Barataria Bay environment provides a refuge for dolphin populations and a critical nursery for their young. For thousands of years, it’s been a healthy, life-sustaining environment for the entire Gulf of Mexico. When the massive Mississippi River levee system was built over the past two centuries, sediment-laden river water was increasingly blocked from the bays. Dolphins moved even closer to Louisiana shore areas as salinity levels increased. Most of them will never leave, regardless of increasing freshwater conditions that can cause fatal skin disease.

Dolphin victim of major freshwater flooding in 2019. Photo: Institute of Marine Mammal Studies/Mississippi State University

Solving the “dolphin problem”

When the diversion project was in its early planning stages, Louisiana officials and project supporters were aware it would harm dolphin populations, which are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). To get around this legal obstacle, Louisiana officials hired veteran Washington, D.C. lobbyists and worked with major environmental organization leaders to press Congress to include a waiver in a 2018 budget bill that allowed the state to injure and kill dolphins in the course of completing and operating the diversion project.

In an article titled “The Marine Mammal Protection Act Problem” that ran in a water industry trade journal, Bob Salzo and former Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu who work at the D.C. lobby shop Van Ness Feldman crowed about how well their gambit to bypass the MMPA worked.

“Fortunately, several national environmental and conservation [nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)] are committed to the restoration of Louisiana coastal wetlands,” they wrote. “With their assistance, we were able to develop a very narrow amendment to the MMPA that waives the Act for the Mid-Barataria and two other coastal restoration projects in Louisiana. With the help of these NGOs, we were able to achieve the unanimous support of Congressional Republican and Democratic leadership to include the amendment in H.R. 1892, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, which was enacted February 9, 2018. Based on this legislation, the Secretary of Commerce has waived application of the MMPA to the Mid-Barataria project.”

Marine mammal scientists were outraged by the maneuver to get around the MMPA, an act they view as crucial to protecting marine mammal species threatened by pollution, development and climate change. A study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science concluded that the Barataria Bay diversion project would cause a “catastrophic” decline in dolphin populations, making them “functionally extinct” in some areas of the bay. “The declines are predicted to be greater than those caused by the [Deepwater Horizon] oil spill and would take place just as the population is starting to recover from the oil spill.”

In an effort to respond to these threats, Louisiana state agencies and diversion project supporters have devised a plan to closely monitor dolphins and move them, if possible, to other areas with higher salinity levels. But dolphin experts say such a plan would be futile in the face of enormous amounts of fresh river water dumped into Barataria Bay, leading to lethal dolphin skin lesions.

The Marine Mammal Commission, a nonpartisan U.S. government oversight agency, also warned about the consequences the diversion project would have for dolphins. In an October 2022 letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the commission stated that “none of the activities outlined in the Dolphin Intervention Plan appear targeted at mitigating or preventing harm or death of bottlenose dolphins expected from exposure to the low-salinity conditions that will result from the MBSD [spell out in brackets] project.”

Moby Solangi, executive director of Mississippi’s Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, pointed out that the marshes of Barataria Bay provide critical nurseries for ocean life in the Gulf in a May 2022 letter to The Advocate newspaper. Comparing the proposed diversion to the catastrophic floods of 2019 in Louisiana and Mississippi, Solangi wrote: “We lost an estimated 337 dolphins, over 200 sea turtles and thousands of acres of oyster beds, shrimp, blue crab, speckled trout and other species. Imagine what a 50-year freshwater flood will do.”

Silent about dolphin deaths

Despite concerns about the freshwater impact on the marine environment, numerous high-powered environmental groups continue to support the diversion plan, arguing that only giant projects on such a scale can fight dramatic climate change impacts to coastal areas.

“This is a critical moment for the future of our coast and our entire state,” said Cathleen Berthelot, policy manager at Environmental Defense Fund in a 2022 press release. The statement was issued by the Restore the Mississippi Delta, a coalition of environmental groups funded by the Walton Family Foundation that include the National Wildlife Federation, Audubon Society and the Pontchartrain Conservancy. “For decades,” the release stated, “scientists have indicated that the best way to address future land loss and maintain a sustainable coast into the future is by harnessing the natural power of the Mississippi River to build and maintain the wetlands. It’s time to make that prospect a reality.” The release did not mention the threats to dolphins or the impacts on the livelihoods of fishermen that would be severely jeopardized.

I interviewed a number of fishermen who have a different take on the river diversions than the Walton-funded coalition. They worry the plan would destroy their ability to make a living and provide Louisianians fresh seafood. And they feel abandoned by environmental groups that support the plan.

“A lot of people don’t know what’s going to really happen here,” said Capt. George Ricks, a recreational fisherman and president of the Save Louisiana Coalition, which opposes the diversions. “These are the same people who were screaming about the BP oil spill killing dolphins, but more dolphins were killed when they had to divert river water into the Bonnet Care Spillway [in 2019]. Now it’s OK to kill dolphins?”

There are a number of environmental groups that oppose the river diversion plan, including the local Sierra Club Delta Chapter, which estimated the financial cost of dolphins deaths. “During the 2010 BP oil spill many bottlenose dolphins died,” the group said in a statement to the Army Corps of Engineers. “The price put on each life was two million dollars. At that rate, the cost of just killing bottlenose dolphins in the Barataria Basin amounts to about four billion dollars.”

A group of nine environmental and marine mammal protection groups issued a blistering response to the Army Corps of Engineers’ draft Environmental Impact Statement for the diversion plan in a June 2021 letter protesting the plan and questioning the policies behind it. The groups and a number of scientists argue there are cheaper, less disruptive ways to strengthen the marshlands that protect the coast. “If this project is to move forward, we very much do not want the losses and suffering of these dolphins to be in vain,” the letter stated. “It is disturbing that we cannot in fact be confident that their sacrifice will result in Barataria Bay restoration.”

So far, Louisiana state agencies have ignored their pleas, while court challenges by environmental groups and fishermen-backed organizations and mounting political opposition have put the $3-billion diversion project on hold.

Dolphins would pay the ultimate price

Marine mammal expert Naomi Rose said she is frustrated that this issue has divided the environmental community, organizations that share a common mission to protect wildlife and the environment. “No one wants to be a dolphin killer, but that’s what they are,” she said. “These dolphins will pay the price for our stupidity.”

Today, after years of debate and tens of millions of dollars spent on designs for several massive river diversion projects, Louisiana’s new Republican Gov. Jeff Landry has taken a different and more skeptical view of an issue that has deeply divided not only environmentalists, but the fishing community as well. Landry says he is working on a new coastal plan and has called for more analysis of the diversion project.

Marine mammal experts say Louisiana’s dolphins may still have a chance.

Rocky Kistner was based in a fishing community near Louisiana’s Barataria Bay during the 2010 BP oil disaster and has covered pollution issues in the Gulf Coast for more than a decade. He is a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, which has received funding from the Walton Family Foundation.