The Louisiana Trustee Implementation Group is planning activities to address lost recreational opportunities caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. We would like your input regarding natural resource restoration opportunities in Louisiana.
The Trustees allocated $22 million to the Louisiana Marine Fisheries Enhancement, Research, and Science Center project in the third phase of early restoration. The Science Center was intended to provide the public with educational and recreational opportunities. Due to site issues that arose during planning and development, the project will no longer proceed. We are now evaluating projects to use the $22 million originally slated for the Science Center for other projects intended to provide and enhance recreational opportunities.
You can submit restoration project ideas for consideration to the Trustees or to the State of Louisiana. If you have submitted project ideas in the past in connection with other Louisiana restoration planning efforts, including Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan and Deepwater Horizon restoration planning efforts, you don’t need to resubmit them. Just reference the method of and date of submittal of those previous project proposals, and they will be retrieved and considered as part of this process. We originally asked for project ideas in November 2016, and are now extending the comment period until June 16, 2017.
Information on the recreational use restoration type, as well as the Oil Pollution Act criteria against which project ideas are being evaluated, can be found in the programmatic restoration plan and in the overview of the plan.