Your Oct. 19 editorial warns that canceling the Mid-Barataria and Mid-Breton erodes a hard-won coastal "consensus." From an engineering standpoint, the opposite is true: We are restoring the guardrails that keep high-risk projects rightsized.
Three of those guardrails were weakened or bypassed:
Marine Mammal Protection Act. Mid-Barataria advanced only after Congress directed a waiver of core MMPA provisions for the project -- despite federal analyses warning of serious risks to Barataria Bay bottlenose dolphins. When a "restoration" project requires a mortality waiver, that signals scale and operations concerns, not boldness.National Flood Insurance Program compliance. Modeling showed changes to water-surface elevations in Plaquemines Parish. Under NFIP, that triggers a Conditional Letter of Map Revision and local permits. These are not box-checks; they protect residents from surprise insurance and flood-risk consequences.Empirical analogs. During the environmental impact study, four Bonnet Carré Spillway openings (2018-2020) produced real-world, river water-injury signals for dolphins, oysters, shrimp, crabs and harmful algae blooms. The data should have tightened uncertainty instead of being deferred to "adaptive management.
Add unresolved modeling/process issues and a cost trajectory that grew from early estimates under $1 billion to a multibillion-dollar program burden. Calling the pause a "retreat" misses the point. It's a course correction toward projects that (a) clear legal/scientific checks, (b) deliver benefits on decadal -- not half-century -- timelines and (c) don't sacrifice working fisheries or protected species as collateral damage.
There's a credible path: a medium diversion at Myrtle Grove with dedicated dredging, paired with land bridges, shoreline protection and aggressive pipeline marsh creation. Dredge-first can build and sustain land now, adjust to storms and sea-level rise and carry fewer ecological and socioeconomic externalities -- while preserving funds for multiple basins.
Louisiana earned respect by pairing ambition with credibility. Recentering on transparent, engineering-led criteria protects that legacy.
DENNIS LAMBERT
civil and environmental engineer