Louisiana’s governor raises major doubts about a stalled $3 billion coastal restoration project

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is raising serious objections to a $3 billion project that has long been hailed key to restoring the state’s eroding coastline. In Thursday remarks to a state Senate committee, Landry decried the growing cost of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion Project. The Republican governor predicted dire harm from the project to a coastal culture dependent on fishing, shrimping and oyster dredging. Landry’s remarks about the project were his most extensive and decisively negative since he took office in January. Ground was broken for the project in Plaquemines Parish in 2023, but state and federal lawsuits have stalled it.