Muddy Waters Mud Flap

To fix its threadbare coast and restore the state's natural hurricane defenses, Louisiana is going to need mud. A lot of it. And no one has more mud than the Army Corps of Engineers.

Every year, the corps' New Orleans district dredges on average 70 million cubic yards of sediment from waterways to keep them clear for maritime navigation -- the largest such operation in the nation. But only a fraction, about 15 million cubic yards, is used to rebuild coastal marshes and wetlands that have been disappearing at the rate of 24 square miles a year.

The remainder of the dredged material is wasted, to the disappointment of state officials, conservationists and some within the corps who would like to see the mud used to help reverse a century of erosion.

from the Times Picayune