Coastal Desk

High Mississippi River Halts French Quarter Road Construction

By Travis Lux • Mar 25, 2020

The full reconstruction of the 800 block of St. Ann Street in the French Quarter has come to a halt, the City of New Orleans announced today.

Two Disasters At Once? Mississippi River Mayors Prepare For Flood Season

By Travis Lux • Mar 19, 2020

Mayors up and down the Mississippi River are bracing for the possible need to respond to two disasters at once — the coronavirus outbreak and the spring flood season.

Water Ways: Dutch See Folly Of Past Approach, Seek To Undo Damage Wrought By Ambitious Engineering

By Tegan Wendland • Mar 13, 2020

Tristan Baurick / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

LAKE MARKEN, The Netherlands — Marker Wadden is a lush, green, man-made archipelago in a big, gray, man-made lake. Its 25,000 square acres are meant to provide a refuge for birds and wildlife that many decades ago disappeared from this shallow body of water when it was turned fresh. Lately, it’s become a refuge for people, too.

Water Ways: How Dutch Cities Are Soaking Up Rain And Reducing Flooding

By Tristan Baurick • Mar 11, 2020

Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

By Tristan Baurick, Times Picayune | The Advocate

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Eveline Bronsdijk knew she'd done her job when the people of Rotterdam began debating whether pigs should be allowed on rooftops.

In 2012, Bronsdijk, the city’s sustainability adviser, was trying to promote green roofs, thin layers of plants that make buildings cooler, the air cleaner and — most importantly for Rotterdam — gutters and storm drains drier.

Water Ways: Dutch Cities Are Letting The Water In

By Tegan Wendland • Mar 10, 2020

Last summer the Mississippi River and many of its tributaries flooded for months, causing more than $20 billion dollars in damage. Climate change is bringing more heavy and frequent rainstorms, a threat many flood protection systems were not built for. Rivers creep over levees or burst them. There’s nowhere for the water to go.

The Dutch have long been proud tamers of rivers. They have built huge networks of levees to keep rising waters away from farms and cities. But now officials are trying what seems like an obvious approach: making room for the water.

Water Ways: The Dutch Are Giving Rising Rivers More Room. Should We Follow Suit?

By Tristan Baurick • Mar 10, 2020

By Tristan Baurick, Times-Picayune | The Advocate

NOORDWAARD, The Netherlands — Vic Gremmer walked through an invisible garden and reached for a doorknob that wasn’t there.

“Here was the opening of the front door,” he said, holding out his hand in a marshy landscape of reeds and willows near a river about 10 miles from Rotterdam. “Here was my home. Over there, the road. But all of it is changed.”

Water Ways: A Culture Of Experimentation Leads To Creative Solutions

By Tegan Wendland • Mar 9, 2020

The Netherlands is a coastal nation and faces similar threats to Louisiana, like rising seas, stronger storms and a sinking coast. Over the past thousand years, the Dutch have built giant floodwalls and levees to protect them from the North Sea, just like officials continue to do in Louisiana.

But climate change is bringing new threats, and the Dutch are trying some unusual approaches. They are rebuilding land with the power of nature, using some tools that we could use here in Louisiana.

Water Ways: How The Dutch Are Building Coastal Protection For Less — With Nature’s Help

By Tristan Baurick • Mar 9, 2020

By Tristan Baurick, Times Picayune | The Advocate

TER HEIJDE, The Netherlands — With a surfboard strapped to his feet and the reins of a giant kite in his hands, Daan Vijverberg skimmed over whitecaps on the Netherlands’ windy south coast. Nearby, other kiteboarders caught gusts strong enough to fling their wetsuited bodies several feet into the air.

“It’s addictive,” Vijverberg said, emerging from the water with a red face and the sniffles. “I have to come two, three times a week.”

Water Ways: The Dutch Mastered Water For A Millennium. Could Their New Approach Save New Orleans?

By Tristan Baurick • Mar 6, 2020

By Tristan Baurick, Times-Picayune | The Advocate

Up close is not the best way to see the world’s biggest gate.

Standing alongside it from one end, where a three-story hinge links to a massive steel lattice, the Maeslant storm surge barrier resembles three crane towers toppled across one another. From the opposite end, nearly 280 yards away, it’s an imposing white wall, like a drive-in movie screen stretched the length of 2½ football fields.

And that’s only half of it.

Water Ways: From Louisiana To The Netherlands, Climate Change Brings New Threats

By Tegan Wendland • Mar 6, 2020

After Hurricane Katrina, Louisiana officials sought advice from the Dutch.

It makes sense. In the Netherlands, people have been managing water for a thousand years. Coastal communities across the world are now facing new climate threats — rising seas, more intense storms and heavier rain.

Coastal Desk

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