Unfortunately, i missed the Basin Program Research and Promotion Board (RPB) meeting on January 6, but i did make the Technical Assistance Group (TAG) meeting on Wednesday, January 7, 2009.

The Research and Promotion Board (RPB) is the official body that directs the Atchafalaya Basin Program and it has been given additional responsibility to submit an Annual Plan to the Legislature each year. I understand that the RPB meeting was not too busy because they are waiting to see the recommendations from the recently created Technical Advisory Group (TAG). The TAG has to sort through all the recommendations from the public and present their selections to the RPB. That is turning out to be a big job.

The TAG is chaired by Mike Wood of the LA Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, and by order of the 2008 Legislation, participants include:

1. Two members from the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, one of whom shall serve as the chair of the group.
2. One member from the Department of Environmental Quality.
3. One member from the Department of Agriculture and Forestry.
4. One member from the Department of Natural Resources.
5. One member from the U.S. Geological Survey.
6. One member from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
7. One member from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
8. One member from the LSU School of Renewable Natural Resources.

The meeting was well attended and the primary subject of discussion was the list of recommended projects to the RPB for the first official Annual Plan, which will be submitted to the Legislature as part of the new ABP planning procedure under Act 606.

The TAG is trying to create a mechanism whereby the representatives of the agencies, each with limited resources, can perform detailed evaluation of a large number of poorly defined recommendations from citizens and resource agencies. The meeting addressed that mechanism, while simultaneously providing recommendations to the RPB for the Annual Plan, which is due within weeks.

Glenn Constant of US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) presented the conclusions of a subcommittee that met to review public recommendations for potential projects. Glenn’s group concluded that any recommended projects would need to meet several criteria:

1. The project must be inside the protection levees.
2. The project should not be identified as a current project by the Corps or the State. That eliminated Buffalo Cove and Henderson Lake.
3. The area under study should have good historic data and a good planning history.
4. Any projects should be based on an evaluation of the water and sediment flowing into the area, the impact of changes to internal circulation and/or openings around the area on the water quality and habitat of the area itself and of adjacent areas.
5. The minimum size of a planning area should be that of a Water Management Unit (WMU), as defined by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in the Atchafalaya Basin Floodway System (ABFS) Master Plan.
6. Based on the above criteria, the group recommended a focus on the East Grand Lake/ Flat Lake Water Management Unit for the coming year.

They suggested that widely supported maintenance work could be immediately initiated on project areas that were not likely to negatively impact any areas. The first project proposed was a maintenance clean-out of the sediment trap at the Dog-Leg Canal.

All other projects would require additional analysis of existing data and interpretation of current and predicted water and sediment flow patterns. so the TAG recommended that the ABP initiate a strategic project which would analyze the WMU and provide additional data for future planning.

Planning should begin with a review of sources of water and sediment into the WMU. Initial projects would probably include modifications to the sources and drainages of the WMU, but must take into account the effects on adjacent areas.

The second level of projects would probably include modifications to internal circulation in the WMU.
All projects should be evaluated in terms of impact on wildlife habitat, forestry and expected rate of progression from wetlands to bottomland hardwoods. The idea is to identify areas that are likely to fill in and to divert sediment to those areas in order to extend the life of more suitable wetlands. This approach acknowledges the fact that the Atchafalaya Basin is a dynamic system and will eventually progress, while still providing management that will optimize the health of the entire ecosystem.

The first two projects address the need to start remediation as soon as possible but to also make informed decisions about major circulation changes in the WMU.

A third project would support the work underway by the USFWS and the USACE to create a Total Ecological Assessment (TEA) of the Atchafalaya Basin. That project involves aggregation of existing data from a variety of sources into a usable database, which could then be used for long term analysis of proposed projects. The database would support the TAG and other government entities in decision making by providing tools for the interpretation of the data collected in the analysis phase of past, current and future projects.

The Basin Program has also announced that the second round of public meetings – these will review the Annual Plan that the Board plans to submit to the Legislature – will be held during the week of February 9, 2009, in several places around the Basin. Watch the papers or this space for details, and get out to have your voice in the process.

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