Study: Money won't fix La. delta

For a thousand years, the Mississippi River built about 4,000 square miles of land at a rate of up to three square miles annually. The river no longer has the ability to keep up with rapid land loss in its delta, according to a study published April 11 in Science Advances. The study concludes land loss will continue despite the state's attempts to pump millions of dollars into re-growing the delta. The study concludes with serious implications for various aspects of life that rely on the delta such as shipping commerce, offshore oil and gas exploration, wildlife habitats, and wetlands that buffer coastal communities from storm surge. Before the Mississippi River was constrained to its current flow by man-made levees, it continuously switched routes on the way to the Gulf of Mexico and deposited sand and clay along the way in building more land. That untamed river built the delta twice as fast than the current pace of land building in the Wax Lake Delta, south of Morgan City. Wax Lake is the only place to show delta growth along the state's coastline within the last 100 years. But the Mississippi River delta is losing land up to seven times faster than the average prehistoric rate of land building, according to the study. (Source: NOLA.com 04/11/18)