Leadership Along a Disappearing Coast

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How the Louisiana state and local coastal master-planning process works
• How to assess how levees, shoreline protection, marsh creation, wetlands assimilation, and non-structural adaptive practices impact natural-hazards risk
• How executive municipal managers can both enable coastal projects and regulate coastal development

MORE SESSION DETAILS

St. John the Baptist and St. Bernard parishes have been impacted by recent catastrophic storms and continue to battle coastal land loss and flooding. Their parish presidents have led efforts to make this issue a national priority and to preserve their communities. Parish representatives will discuss their input in the State Coastal Master Plan process, their inter-agency collaboration with state and federal grant and regulatory entities, and their administrative strategy to address flooding in their parishes. Speakers will also highlight how their organization, Louisiana Parishes Against Coastal Erosion, has taken a guiding role in uniting the statewide response to coastal land loss. Learn how one parish president has spearheaded an effort to construct a federal levee to protect her community from coastal flooding as well as initiated a number of mitigation initiatives, including shoreline-protection, wetland-assimilation, and home-elevation programs to combat flood risk and enhance coastal protection in her parish. Learn how another has fought for breakwaters, shoreline protection, and marsh-creation projects in St. Bernard — which directly abuts the Gulf of Mexico — as well as undertaken efforts to build consensus in the formulation of a comprehensive local coastal management strategy.