Green Corridor in New Orleans City Business : March 31 , 2008
Plan plugs river energy into coastal restoration
Green Corridor idea to cost $1 trillion, keep MRGO open
by Stephen Maloney
Green Corridor, a new nonprofit environmental group, said it was the solution to shore up Louisiana’s vanishing coastline, which is disappearing at a rate of one football field every 30 minutes.
The project faces major obstacles: It will cost an estimated $1 trillion and take 15 years to implement.
Green Corridor began in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as the brainchild of St. Bernard design engineer and inventor Eric Orgeron. It recently picked up support from Mardi Gras aficionado and environmentalist Blaine Kern.
Kern said Green Corridor’s 10-point plan would work to restore the state coastline.
“This is simply the most important project,” Kern said. “It’s more important than schools, more important than the presidential election.
This is whether or not we’re going to drown, for Christ sake, or be around as a city 30 years from now.”
Kern said Orgeron is one of the smartest people he has ever met and Green Corridor’s plans will ultimately save the Gulf Coast if implemented. But the plan includes keeping the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet open, which is unlikely, and installing hydroelectric generators all along the Mississippi River, which is also unlikely.
“I believe that right now we don’t need any more damn studies,” Kern said. “We should be working out there and doing what needs to be done and this guy’s (Orgeron) idea ... is doable.”
Orgeron said he became frustrated with the lack of a cohesive and well-funded statewide plan to restore the coast after seeing his hometown of Chalmette inundated with floodwaters. He saw the resulting devastation as a call to action.
“We don’t have the time to fool with this,” Orgeron said. “We have less than 10 years to gradually get a handle and start moving forward and start getting coastal restoration going.”
Orgeron’s first step would be to set up a permanent funding mechanism for coastal restoration in the form of 120 hydroelectric barges lining the Mississippi River from Belle Chasse to the Gulf of Mexico. An energy surcharge of 5 percent on the hydroelectric output will generate approximately $2.6 billion annually for the state, Orgeron said.
The rest of the project funding would come from public-private partnerships fueled by private companies drawn here by the energy source, Orgeron said.
The river would have to be closed to all traffic with all shipping containers diverted to the MRGO, making the controversial shipping channel a key element to the plan’s success.
With the MRGO’s closure recommended by everyone from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to members of Congress, Orgeron acknowledges his plan faces an uphill battle from the start.
“This entire project requires a congressional act,” he said. “It will be a congressional act to open it (MRGO); it will be a congressional act to fund this entire project.”
Reopening the MRGO will not spell disaster to low-lying communities east of New Orleans as many residents fear, Orgeron said.
Under the Green Corridor plan, the channel’s walls will be properly armored with 18-foot sheet metal barriers set 1,500 feet apart. The channel will be dredged to a depth of 60 feet.
The armoring will prevent any further damage to the surrounding marsh through saltwater intrusion and erosion, while the 60 foot depth will allow the MRGO to become the “true” shortcut for cargo ships coming up from the Gulf of Mexico it was always intended to be, Orgeron said.
“The ecological damage is stopped by the armoring,” he said. “Right now as we speak the damage is continuing and when they put the rock barrier across the outlet it will continue to happen. This will stop the damage and put the MRGO to good use.”
Orgeron’s next step would be to line the now unused river with 120 hydroelectric barges with each featuring a riverboat-like pinwheel the river’s current will steadily turn to generate energy.
“It’s pretty clear in the industry that wind power is like crude oil, and water is like gasoline,” he said. “If we took crude oil, you’d have to get it 140 degrees in order to get it moving. Then again if I put gasoline on the ground it’s not going to take much to get it going. It’s much easier to get energy from water.”
The state’s only hydroelectric plant in Vidalia uses underwater turbines, which Orgeron said are not as efficient as surface-based generators.
The environmentally friendly energy produced by the barges will attract companies to the state eager to capitalize on the easily available energy, create a permanent funding source for coastal restoration and place Louisiana at the forefront of the “green” movement, Orgeron said.
Bob Thomas, chairman of the Environment Group for Gov. Bobby Jindal’s Economic Growth Transition Advisory Council, said new and dynamic environmental ideas are needed to help save the coast and alter the state’s energy procurement methods.
Utilizing existing natural features like the flow of the Mississippi River for energy production can be an important step toward finding ways to heal the coast, Thomas said.
“Louisiana is a resource based state and our past economy mirrors that foundation,” Thomas said. “We need to continue to refine our use of these resources, and enhance economic growth by providing incentives to sustainable, environmentally-based businesses, as well as those that make use of ignored resources like aquatic vegetation, our overabundance of water, and the potential of wind power.”