Status: Planning is underway
Background:
The goal of restoration planning under CERCLA is to identify actions that will
serve to restore, rehabilitate, replace, or acquire the equivalent of the
natural resources and ecological services that have been injured or lost due
releases of hazardous substances. Restoration is the preferred means of
compensating the public for injuries or losses of natural resources under
CERCLA.
The Trustees have developed and proposed a restoration plan that is
intended to compensate for the resource injuries and losses caused by the
hazardous substances released into Bayou Verdine and Coon Island Loop.
That plan is described in the Draft Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and
Environmental Assessment (DARP/EA) for Bayou Verdine, Calcasieu Parish,
Louisiana. It was released for public review on March 27, 2009 (60-days).
Comments on the plan will be considered by the Trustees in making further
decisions on this plan.
The Trustees approached restoration planning with the view that the injured
resources and associated lost services are part of an integrated ecological
system and that the Calcasieu Estuary represents the relevant geographical area
for appropriate restoration actions. This helps to ensure that the benefits of
restoration actions are related, or have an appropriate nexus to the benthic
resource injuries and losses being assessed.
Restoration planning began with a search for potential projects within the
watershed. The Trustees published notices announcing two public meetings held
back-to-back in Lake Charles, LA on September 29, 2004. The purpose of these
notices and meetings was to invite the public to submit restoration project
proposals for the Bayou Verdine NRDA. Projects identified by the public and by
the Trustees as a result of these and other efforts were evaluated to
identify restoration project(s) that are feasible and will adequately
compensate for the benthic losses. The criteria used to evaluate potential
projects included: the ability of the project to meet restoration goals and
objectives, cost of project, likelihood of project success, probability of
project to result in injury to other resources, and extent that project
benefits more than one resource.
