Lawsuit Victory: Barataria Sediment Project is Dead

By Mark J. Palmer

Army Corps Project Has Been Blocked From Diverting Mississippi Freshwater, Mud, and Toxins into the Barataria Wetland Basin – Wetlands and Dolphins Saved

Last January, 2024, the International Marine Mammal Project of Earth Island Institute joined with other conservation organizations and commercial oyster farmers to stop the proposed diversion, which would involve a massive diversion of Mississippi freshwater, mud, and toxins into the Barataria basin.

One aspect of the proposal was the acknowledgement by the Army Corps that the local population of bottlenose dolphins would be exterminated by the project: dolphins cannot live in fresh water for long.

Dr. Riki Ott, Director of Earth Island Institute’s ALERT Project and a plaintiff in the case with IMMP, said, “The Barataria Bay dolphin studies advance understanding of molecular changes in genetic coding caused by oil spill exposures. This has applications for humans and other animals besides dolphins. Killing the subjects kills the studies and the knowledge that results from them.”

The case, brought in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, contended that the Army Corps’ approval of the project violates the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act.

In particular, the lawsuit argues that the Army Corps failed to adequately assess the project’s effects on sediment and water quality in the basin, including the impact of funneling hundreds of thousands of cubic feet per second of contaminated Mississippi River water into the Barataria Basin.

The lawsuit also alleges that the Army Corps and the agencies responsible for protecting threatened and endangered species, the Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service, downplayed the project’s impacts on several endangered and threatened species, including at least three species of endangered sea turtles that use the Basin for foraging and nesting, and the red knot and the piping plover, both birds on the US Endangered and Threatened Species List.

Fortunately, while our case was winding through the courts, the state of Louisiana and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority determined the project should end on July 17, 2025. Our lawsuit and other legal actions, objections from the fishing industry, and cost overruns for the 50-year project led to the decision to terminate the project.

Our case was subsequently dismissed on August 4, 2026, bringing the case to a close.

A big thank you is owed to our partners for the successful lawsuit and to our lawyers, Bill Eubanks and Lizzie Lewis of Eubanks & Associates, PLLC.

We will continue to work with the ALERT Project and ensure the wetlands are protected from ill-thought-out massive projects that threaten more damage.

*************************************

The dolphins of Barataria will continue to enjoy the wetlands for the moment, as the population continues to recover from the massive Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion and subsequent massive oil spill in 2010. But other dolphins are at risk of entanglement in plastic fishing gear, pollution, and direct killing, as is happening in Taiji, Japan. Can you donate to help dolphins? We work daily with fishermen to make fishing safer for marine mammals and other marine life, and we continue to pressure the Japanese government to end whaling and the Taiji dolphin slaughter. Please give generously today.