As Mark Schleifstein reported in last Friday’s edition of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority of Louisiana (CPRA) released its preliminary $621 million annual plan for review ahead of public hearings scheduled for February 8 – 10. Despite overall budget cuts of nearly $74 million, coastal restoration is slated to receive a higher fraction of CPRA funds in FY 2011 than in FY 2010. Using a broad budget/employment conversion factor from the Economic Policy Institute of 20.3 jobs per budgeted million, we estimate that $300 million in FY11 funding will translate into more than 6,000 jobs in wetland restoration.
Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) Spending, FY 2011-2013 (Source: CPRA)
This marks the first time in the authority's three-year history that a larger share of agency expenditure will be bracketed for ecosystem rehabilitation than levee construction. Still, FY11 funding for the Morganza to the Gulf levee project, at $82.2 million, is nearly twice as much as the largest line item in the coastal restoration budget.
Breakdown of FY11 CPRA Spending (Source: CPRA)
The five biggest coastal restoration line items, accounting for more than one-sixth of FY11 spending, are:
- $43.8 million for shoreline rebuilding in western Cameron Parish
- $22 million for protecting the U.S. 90 land bridge along the northwestern shore of Lake Borgne
- $21.5 million for restoring the Biloxi Marsh in St. Bernard Parish
- $17 million for thirty-four restoration projects under development through the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA)
- $5.5 million for cypress reforestation and marshland improvements in the Central Wetlands Unit, a 30,000-acre area straddling Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes
In addition, the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority has budgeted $19.3 million for operations, maintenance, and monitoring (OM&M) across all restoration projects.
Coastal restoration project spending will translate into well-paying jobs for the people of southern Louisiana. Assuming labor costs equivalent to one-third of project spending and an hourly wage of $10 for landscapers in New Orleans, we can estimate that the Central Wetlands reforestation alone will create ninety-two landscaping jobs for residents of the Lower Ninth Ward and nearby communities. In comparison with $7/hour in jobs in retail and restaurant service, these green jobs would offer people both higher pay and a chance to purposefully contribute to local flood protection, a critical need in areas devastated by storm surges during Hurricane Katrina.
These green jobs and others like them would provide an economic kick-start for communities struggling with degraded wetlands and Depression-era levels of unemployment. We hope that this CPRA budget marks the beginning of a stronger shift towards marshalling state resources to boost employment in coastal restoration.