Will attempt to show

Advocate: Coastal Louisiana land loss worth price to fix, study will attempt to show

Let's hope the attempt goes well. It seems very involved.

BURAS — With a 50-year, $50 billion coastal restoration and protection plan to pay for, the state is gearing up with evidence to convince the rest of the country that the price tag is worth it.

The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority started a new study in May that will quantify the worth of south Louisiana and just how much the rest of the country has to lose if nothing is done to stem coastal land loss or make coastal communities more secure.

“Try to understand the financial implications of future land loss and flood impacts,” Charles Sutcliffe, policy adviser with the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities, told Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority members at their Wednesday meeting.

This Coast-wide Economic Impact Evaluation will be done in cooperation with LSU and the RAND Corporation and will include a steering committee made up of representatives from government agencies, businesses and coastal researchers.

For future reference, when your state is faced with an environmental catastrophe on an order of magnitude such that roughly a third of of its total land area (including its most heavily populated communities) is sinking into the ocean, here is what you do.

First you will need to put together a "Master Plan" for coastal restoration.  This will be a long, politically controversial and expensive process.

Next you'll need to do the cost/benefit analysis of implementing the master plan.  This will also involve a lot of people and take several months or years to complete. This is what the phase they're on right now.  Finally, comes the marketing campaign to develop a "brand" that makes the cost/benefit analysis of the Master Plan accessible to people.

Once that's underway you're well on to drowning.

But the important thing is lots and lots of consultants and lobbyists and lawyers get paid in the meantime. Because that's what emergency response is really all about.