In 1990, passage of the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act
(CWPPRA; PL-101-646, Title 111), locally referred to as the Breaux Act, provided
authorization and funding for a multi-agency task force to begin actions to curtail
wetland losses. In 1998, after extensive studies and construction of a number of
coastal restoration projects accomplished under CWPPRA, the State of Louisiana and
the Federal agencies charged with restoring and protecting the remainder of Louisiana’s
valuable coastal wetlands adopted a new coastal restoration plan in 1998. The underlying
principles of the new plan, “Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana,”,
are to restore and mimic the natural processes that built and maintained coastal
Louisiana. This plan necessitates basin-scale action to restore more natural hydrology
and sediment introduction processes; it subdivides Louisiana’s coastal zone into
four regions with a total of nine hydrologic basins. The plan proposes ecosystem
restoration strategies that would result in efforts larger in scale than any that
have been implemented in the past.
The Coast 2050 Plan report served as the basis for a Federal 905(b) Reconnaissance
Report for undertaking feasibility studies in 2000 to seek Water Resources Development
Act approval of a comprehensive plan and authorization of major projects beyond
what was being pursued under CWPPRA. In 2000, it was envisioned that a series of
feasibility reports would be prepared over a 10-year period. The first feasibility
efforts focused on the Barataria Bay basin and involved marsh creation and barrier
shoreline restoration. Early in fiscal year 2002, however, it was recognized that
a more indepth, comprehensive study was needed. This comprehensive study could be
used early on to present to Congress a Comprehensive Plan and could be submitted
later to Congress for programmatic approval.
To fulfill the need, the Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA), Louisiana Ecosystem Restoration
Study was initiated. Subsequent to authorization, detailed studies are completed
on features of the Comprehensive Plan. As envisioned, these feature studies result
in project implementation reports (PIRs), which are in detail sufficient for preparing
plans and specifications to implement the proposed projects.