CPRA’s “bold” scheme for saving Plaquemines is to rehabilitate the crevasse for a post-crevasse age. The agency’s master plan calls for punching eight giant holes through the levees on the Mississippi and two more through those on its main distributary, the Atchafalaya. The openings will be gated and channelized, and the channels will themselves be leveed. CPRA likes to characterize the effort as a form of restoration—as a way to “reestablish the natural sediment deposition process.” And this is true, but only in the sense that electrifying a river might be called natural.
