Louisiana cancels $3B coastal repair funded by oil spill settlement
apnews.com

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74 points

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geox

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6 hours ago

18 comments

cFyrute ・ 4 hours ago

Important context from the article includes things such as: unspent funds remain available for future projects; the works were predicted to have a devastating impact on local wildlife, such as killing an estimated 6,000 dolphins; this is not a partisan issue, as there have been outspoken Dems and Republicans on either side; also devastating impact to the local fishing industry was predicted, prompting a $400m lawsuit to curtail the project.

  • metabagel ・ a minute ago

    There’s no such thing as a “Dem”. Use the proper name for the party, not a pejorative shorthand.

  • gpm ・ 4 hours ago

    > unspent funds remain available for future projects

    Not according to the article?

    > Its collapse means that the state could lose out on more than $1.5 billion in unspent funds and may even have to repay the $618 million it already used to begin building.

    • rascul ・ 4 hours ago

      From the article:

      > The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group, a mix of federal agencies overseeing the settlement funds, said that “unused project funds will be available for future Deepwater Horizon restoration activities” but would require review and approval.

  • throwawaysleep ・ 4 hours ago

    You would probably make up the dolphin lives on curtailing the fishery.

bena ・ 5 hours ago

[flagged]

  • birn559 ・ 2 hours ago

    Very often, things make much more sense than journalists want you to believe.

  • nine_k ・ 4 hours ago

    How have these goddamn morons got elected? How high the voter turnout has been?

    I'm afraid it's not stupidity, but malfeasance, likely fueled by some kind of corruption.

    (It's not impossible, of course, that Louisiana's population universally hates the coastal cleanup effort and demands to stop it, no matter what it costs,and the administration just followsthe will of the people. Somehow I never heard of such unusual sentiment though.)

    • chneu ・ 2 hours ago

      There is an amazing book about this. The author interviewed hundreds of people down in Alabama to get an idea of how they felt about these things.

      Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land

      The gist of it is that people think short term. They can care about the environment/greater good but if you promise them jobs/prosperity in the short term they'll usually vote for that, despite their livelihood/environment being destroyed by the industry that promised them the jobs. Then when things don't work out they blame minorities, women, etc for "cutting in line" with the help of people like Obama and democrats.

      It's really not that complicated which, imo, is kind of sad.

    • munificent ・ 3 hours ago

      > it's not stupidity, but malfeasance, likely fueled by some kind of corruption

      As someone who grew up in Louisiana: it's all three. It's always all three.

  • toomuchtodo ・ 5 hours ago

    > Its collapse means that the state could lose out on more than $1.5 billion in unspent funds and may even have to repay the $618 million it already used to begin building.

    This is at the same time the state is protecting hundreds of millions of dollars in budget deficits.

    • toast0 ・ 4 hours ago

      If I'm reading this right, which is hard because most of the information is missing... The whole project is $3B. Someone else is kicking in $1.5B, $618M has already been spent, so maybe completion requires $872M and not completion takes $618M. Or maybe $618M was spent of the outside contribution, so it's $1.5B to complete and $618M to cancel?

      If the state doesn't have the money, cancellation sounds less expensive than completion, in the short term. Of course, the costs for not doing the coastal repairs will continue to acrue, but if there's no money, there's no money?

      • mcny ・ an hour ago
        ・ 2 more

        > If the state doesn't have the money, cancellation sounds less expensive than completion, in the short term. Of course, the costs for not doing the coastal repairs will continue to acrue, but if there's no money, there's no money?

        I feel like this story has played out so many times before with the end result being the federal government ends up paying for it but only after it becomes much more expensive than if we had paid for it much earlier? I feel like this is a defect in how we run our government.

        • h4ck_th3_pl4n3t ・ 37 minutes ago

          This is not a defect of how you run the government.

          This is a lack of controlling laws that ensure safety and compliance mechanisms for companies polluting the environment.

          And why is there a lack of those kind of laws? That's something you have to remind the senators and governors of.

morninglight ・ 4 hours ago

[flagged]

  • cFyrute ・ 4 hours ago

    As per the article, the fishing industry is what he was referring to as the "state's way of life" here. Not "stupidity", obviously.