Rising seas portend more problems. The sea level around New Orleans is rising at a rate of as much as 9 millimeters (0.35 inches) per year, or three feet (about 1 meter) each century, much higher t…
In this aerial photo, dredging operations to build an underwater sill are seen, with the city of New Orleans in the background, Sept. 26, 2023, in Plaquemines Parish, La.NEW ORLEANS — The heating element removed from Monique Plaisance’s water heater in September was disintegrating, streaked with rust and covered in a dry crust. She blamed the corrosion on the water piped in from the area’s longtime drinking water source: the Mississippi River.
By early October, water intakes at towns such as Boothville, Port Sulphur and Pointe a la Hache had been inundated. Authorities cite multiple factors for the salt water intrusion. Most prominent this year has been a drought across the Midwest that has meant less water flowing into the Mississippi and the rivers feeding it.
Another factor is dredging, according to Stephen Murphy, an assistant professor at Tulane University’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and the director of the university’s Disaster Management Program. The lower Mississippi is frequently dredged by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to make way for huge cargo ships serving ports vital to the Louisiana and national economies.
In Jefferson Parish, next to New Orleans, officials began laying out flexible piping resembling giant fire hoses in a plan to pipe water from farther up the Mississippi to dilute the salt water. This is the fifth year the Corps has built an underwater structure to slow the salt water flow. But this is the first time sill construction has been used in consecutive years. Before last year, others were built in 1988, 1999 and 2012.Rising seas portend more problems.
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