Series: Groundwater Crisis Looms in Louisiana
- Austin R. Ramsey
- Mar 19, 2021
- 33 min read
Updated: Aug 12
New Orleans Public Radio coastal reporter Tegan Wendland and I spent months scouring documents and interviewing sources for a five-part investigative series that uncovered decades of overuse, unregulated pumping by industries and agriculture, and scant oversight or action from legislative committees in rural Louisiana.
Known For Its Floods, Louisiana Is Running Dangerously Short of Groundwater
March 19, 2021
Louisiana is known for its losing battle against rising seas and increasingly frequent floods. It can sometimes seem like the state has too much water. But the aquifers deep beneath its swampy landscape face a critical shortage.
Groundwater levels in and around Louisiana are falling faster than almost anywhere else in the country, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. An analysis by the Investigative Reporting Workshop and WWNO/WRKF traced the problem to decades of overuse, unregulated pumping by
industries and agriculture, and scant oversight or action from legislative committees rife with conflicts of interest.
Experts warn that all of these factors threaten the groundwater that nearly two-thirds of Louisianans rely on for drinking and bathing. Combined with the expected effects of climate-fueled heat and drought, it puts Louisiana on the brink of a groundwater crisis more common in Western states.
"Will restaurants no longer be able to put a giant glass of water on your table when you go in to have your seafood platter?" asks Craig Colten, a Louisiana State University professor who has studied water issues for years. "Will there be limits on how frequently you can wash your car in your driveway or water your lawn?"
Decades of overuse
Agriculture consumes more than 61% of Louisiana's groundwater. In part, that's because a centuries-old law gives landowners "ultimate dominion" over the groundwater beneath their property.
When it comes time to flood his rice fields in southwestern Louisiana, sixth-generation farmer Christian Richard just flips a switch. Within seconds, crystal clear water gurgles up a 120-foot well and shoots out a short spout, right into the field.
It's simple, easy and free.
"I think that ultimately, rice will be grown in the areas where the water is the cheapest and the most readily available," Richard says.
But the Chicot Aquifer he draws from is losing water faster than it can be replenished. It's being overdrawn by about 350 million gallons a day. And that's creating another threat: saltwater intrusion.
Overpumping reduces the downward pressure exerted by the aquifer's fresh water, giving seawater from the Gulf of Mexico room to move in and fill the void. Aquifers in other parts of the state are also dealing with saltwater intrusion, but the Chicot's proximity to the coast exacerbates the problem here, says Christine Kirchhoff, a national water resources management and policy researcher at the University of Connecticut.
"You might have a well that is functioning just fine now," Kirchhoff says, "but once salt contaminates fresh water, it's done. That's it. You no longer have that well."
Louisiana's oil and gas refineries, paper mills and other industries are other major groundwater users. Our investigation finds they draw more of it than industries in any other state except California.
Industry also has an outsized influence when it comes to regulating Louisiana's water.
"The way we've been doing it"
Most states have regional commissions that oversee their vital groundwater resources. Texas, for example, has 98.
Louisiana has just two.
That includes one in Baton Rouge, where the state Board of Ethics recently charged five of the commission's 18 members with conflicts of interest, because they are employed by companies the commission is supposed to be regulating.
At the state level, there are two legislative committees responsible for managing water. But the IRW and WWNO/WRKF investigation found more than a third of the 25 legislators who sit on them have business ties to major groundwater users.
Democratic State Rep. Denise Marcelle has been trying to draw attention to these potential conflicts for years but was told, "'This is the way we've been doing it,'" she says. "They protect the industry and not the constituents, in my opinion."
Most of the state lawmakers did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did Governor John Bel Edwards.
After this story first aired in Louisiana, Republican Senate Environmental Quality Committee Chairman Eddie Lambert said he was concerned about the issue. He said he may look into the problem and supports a "comprehensive study" that examines Louisiana's groundwater supply.
"Pristine drinking water should not be used by industry or agriculture," Lambert said.
At least 12 separate reports — done at taxpayers' expense over the past 70 years — have urged the state to create a comprehensive water management plan.
Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources technically oversees water, but spokesman Patrick Courreges says it can't do much. "We feel like we're right up against the edge of our regulatory authority," he says. "We're doing the best we can with what we're empowered to do."
Costly local solutions
Without leadership at the state level some communities have taken on water management themselves.
Twenty years ago, the small, northern Louisiana town of West Monroe started running out of water. The biggest user was the local paper mill, which also happened to be the biggest employer.
"People can't see the aquifer," says Terry Emory, the city's environmental quality manager. "You can't convince people in Louisiana that they're going to run out of water, because everywhere they look, they see water."
Emory and other local officials came up with a plan. They set out to expand their sewage treatment plant so it could provide water for the mill, and save the aquifer for local residents." It cost $20 million in federal and state grants, and took years to build. But now they're turning wastewater into usable water — a crisis averted.
Mark Davis, director of Tulane's Center for Environmental Law, says small towns like West Monroe wouldn't be forced to come up with expensive solutions like this if the state actually had laws that protected the groundwater. He chairs a state committee the Legislature tasked with rewriting the state's water code more than five years ago. It has yet to make any formal recommendations.
"Raw water is becoming more coveted," he says." And unless you have some kind of restrictions on how and when it can be used, essentially, you can expect someone to take it from you."
Texas, for example, has made plays for Louisiana's water for decades.
Davis says instead of leaving it to "individuals and fate" Louisiana needs laws, as other states have, to protect groundwater. "Someone should be accountable for the job."
(Part 1) The Water Problems: Amid Rising Seas and Record Storms, Louisiana's Water is Running Low
March 8, 2021
Reporters Austin R. Ramsey and Tegan Wendland traveled across the state interviewing scientists, farmers, industry leaders and politicians and examining more than 100 reports to explain how overuse of the state’s valuable resource — compounded by the effects of climate change — puts Louisiana on the brink of a groundwater crisis. Some experts say that if the state doesn’t address this issue, Louisiana could face mass water shortages Western states have long grappled with.
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana has a water problem. But it has nothing to do with its losing battle against rising seas, rivers that routinely spill their banks or increasingly violent storms that pummel its coast.
This problem is buried in aquifers deep beneath the state’s swampy landscape, where the groundwater that nearly two-thirds of Louisianans rely on for drinking and bathing is rapidly diminishing.
Groundwater levels in and around Louisiana are falling faster than almost anywhere else in the country, according to U.S. Geological Survey data. A monthslong investigation by the Investigative Reporting Workshop and WWNO/WRKF traced the problem to decades of overuse, unregulated pumping by industries and agriculture, and scant oversight or action from legislative committees rife with conflicts of interest.
Experts warn that all of these factors, combined with the effects of climate change, put Louisiana on the brink of a groundwater crisis that could resemble the water shortages Western states have long grappled with.
“Will restaurants no longer be able to put a giant glass of water on your table when you go in to have your seafood platter?” asked Craig Colten, a Louisiana State University professor who has studied water issues for years. “Will there be limits on how frequently you can wash your car in your driveway or water your lawn? These are the kinds of things that are commonplace in California. Is that part of our water future?”
Agriculture consumes more than 61% of Louisiana’s groundwater. Chemical producers and other industries use 14%, more than industries in any other state except California. The public uses what’s left.
Most states have regional commissions that oversee their vital groundwater resources. Texas, for example, has 98.
Louisiana has just two.
In Baton Rouge, the Capital Area Ground Water Conservation Commission was formed in 1974 to oversee management of the Southern Hills Aquifer System, which provides drinking water for the region.
Not only has it been criticized by residents and public officials for being ineffective, but now it also faces a suite of charges for ethics violations. The Louisiana Board of Ethics recently charged five of the commission’s 18 members with conflicts of interest, because they are employed by companies the commission is supposed to be regulating. The five remain on the commission while their cases proceed.
Democratic State Rep. Denise Marcelle has been trying to draw attention to the commissioners’ potential conflicts for years.
“I’ve always thought it was unethical for them to be serving in that capacity,” she said. “But they said, ‘this is the way we’ve been doing it.’”
The IRW and WWNO/WRKF spent six months exploring the extent to which Louisiana’s groundwater is diminishing and the efforts the state has — or hasn’t — taken to address the problem. Reporters interviewed dozens of local, state and national water resource experts, analyzed groundwater monitoring data and reviewed more than 100 scientific studies.
The investigation found that:
At least 12 separate reports — done at taxpayers’ expense — have urged state legislators to create a comprehensive water management plan. They’ve failed to provide such a plan.
Louisiana’s water laws are notoriously lax. Property owners — including industries and agriculture — can take as much groundwater as they want without getting the state’s permission or compensating their neighbors.
Industries withdraw more groundwater per person per day in Louisiana than in any other state or territory.
More than one-third of the 25 legislators who sit on the two committees responsible for water management have business ties to major groundwater users. All but three have accepted campaign contributions from them.
Without leadership at the state level, some communities have taken on water management themselves.
Twenty years ago, the small, northern Louisiana town of West Monroe started running out of water. The biggest user was the local paper mill, which also happened to be the biggest employer.
So officials came up with a plan to expand their sewage treatment plant so it could provide water for the mill. It cost $20 million and took years to build. But now they’re turning wastewater into usable water and saving the aquifer — a crisis averted.
“People can’t see the aquifer,” said Terry Emory, the city’s environmental quality manager. “You can’t convince people in Louisiana that they’re going to run out of water, because everywhere they look, they see water. That doesn’t mean it’s a feasible source of water to do anything with. But they see it, so there’s no problem.”
A Crisis Unknown
No one seems to know exactly how much water is in Louisiana’s 11 major aquifers. Few of its 31,000 public and private wells are equipped to provide real-time data. A 2011 report concluded that the most significant resource management issue Louisiana faced was a lack of timely and continuous data.
“We don’t really know how much water we’ve got,” said Mark Davis, director of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy. “We have some general ideas, thanks to folks like USGS and others. But … you don’t know what that water is being used for and what it should be used for, maybe in the future. We don’t prioritize it in any significant way until it’s too late.”
[We analyzed U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Data for Louisiana to determine the extent to which water levels have declined .]
The IRW and WWNO/WRKF used USGS records to compile a subset of 2,000 wells that have reliable data. The analysis showed that groundwater levels across the state declined by an average of more than 10 inches a year over the last two decades. That means some wells could eventually dry up, land subsidence could increase and drinking water could be ruined by saltwater intrusion.
The USGS conducted a separate analysis of that data subset. It found that if a few heavy industrial and agricultural users were excluded, Louisiana’s groundwater use would be sustainable. But hydrologists cautioned that both of these analyses could be misleading because some wells record more data than others.
Scott Hemmerling, a director at the nonprofit Water Institute of the Gulf in Baton Rouge, said that because groundwater levels change so slowly — over decades or even centuries — management strategies must be put into place now to safeguard future water supplies.
“We won’t recognize the problem until it’s a crisis,” Hemmerling said. “Eventually we do need some type of permanent solution to protect the groundwater.”
Colten, the LSU professor, has studied water hazards in the South and in communities along Louisiana’s coast for decades. His book, “Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance,” takes aim at the misconception that Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states have an endless supply of water.
“Water is not an infinite resource,” Colten said. “We have in the past and we continue to show that we can consume more than is available.”
Competition among agriculture, industry and public-supply water users remains the biggest threat to water security, he added.
“People want water when they need it, not when nature provides it.”
(Part 2) The Price? Free, While It Lasts: Louisiana's Biggest Source of Groundwater Is Losing Water Fastest
March 9, 2021
CROWLEY, La. — When it comes time to flood his rice fields in southwestern Louisiana, Christian Richard just flips a switch. Within seconds, crystal clear water gurgles up a 120-foot well and shoots out a short spout, right into the field.
It’s simple, easy and free.
Other than the cost to dig the well and the price he pays to run the pump,
the water itself is like the air above it — free. He can use as much of it as he wants.
But he doesn’t like to talk about that.
“I just don’t like the message there because it’s going to make somebody say, ‘Well, maybe we should make them pay for the water,’” Richard said. “I mean, I don’t want to make a bigger deal out of it than what it is, you know? Because you’re almost inviting somebody to stake claim to this water.”
A centuries-old law gives Louisiana landowners “ultimate dominion” over the groundwater beneath their property. That means farmers, manufacturers and homeowners can take as much as they want, when they want it — no fees required.
But this hands-off approach to groundwater management is creating big problems in southwestern Louisiana, where the state’s largest and most important aquifer is losing water fast. More than 661 million gallons of water are being pumped every day from the Chicot Aquifer System, while only about 313 million gallons are being returned through rain or natural drainage.
The aquifer is being overdrawn by 348 million gallons each day — well beyond a sustainable measure.
“There has to be a real crisis in order for people to stand up and take notice,” said Tim Duex, a professor of hydrology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “If we continue with the current trends then, at some point in the not-too-distant future, there will be a drastic change and we’ll have to switch to some alternative water source.”
“There has to be a real crisis in order for people to stand up and take notice,” said Tim Duex, a professor of hydrology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. “If we continue with the current trends then, at some point in the not-too-distant future, there will be a drastic change and we’ll have to switch to some alternative water source.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies the Chicot system as a “sole-source aquifer,” meaning there’s no other source of water for people who live between Lake Charles and Lafayette. The region accounts for most of the state’s $1.8 billion rice industry.
Overpumping has also created another threat to the Chicot: saltwater intrusion.
Overpumping reduces the downward pressure exerted by the aquifer’s fresh water and gives seawater from the Gulf of Mexico room to move in and fill the void. Aquifers in other parts of the state are also dealing with saltwater intrusion, but the Chicot’s proximity to the coast exacerbates the problem here, said Christine Kirchhoff, a national water resources management and policy researcher at the University of Connecticut.
“You might have a well that is functioning just fine now,” Kirchhoff said, “but once salt contaminates fresh water, it’s done. That’s it. You no longer have that well.”
The three primary water users in the region — agriculture, industries and public suppliers — draw almost exclusively from the Chicot. Overpumping has contributed to the formation of an elongated cone of depression in the heart of Louisiana rice country, the third highest producing region in the nation.
U.S. Geological Survey models depict the cone’s center west of Lafayette. More than 9,000 square miles of groundwater in that area are already flowing toward the center of the cone, and deep groundwater wells have been inundated by salt water.
No Regulatory Oversight
Louisiana has only two regional oversight agencies to safeguard its aquifers — one for the Southern Hills Aquifer System near Baton Rouge, the other for the Sparta Aquifer in northern Louisiana.
In 2003, the state Legislature gave the Water Resources Commission authority to create five regional agencies, and hydrology professor Duex began lobbying to create one for the Chicot. He helped assemble a group of stakeholders who held meetings and created bylaws.
But today the Chicot, Louisiana’s most heavily used aquifer, still has no regulatory oversight.
In 2019, Duex made the hour-long drive to Baton Rouge to petition the Water Resources Commission in person.
“I realize the wheels of progress turn slowly,” he said, “but … I’d like to see something established before I retire or I die.”
Rice Industry Tries to Cut Back
Almost directly above the Chicot’s cone of depression sits the sleepy town of Crowley, population 12,500, which calls itself “the rice capital of America.” It’s in Acadia Parish, home to more rice per-acre than any other parish in the state. Louisiana has “parishes” rather than counties.
A short drive outside of town, amid Cajun prairieland teeming with rice fields, is the Louisiana State University AgCenter H. Rouse Caffey Rice Research Station, where agronomists work with farmers to breed water-efficient rice.
Contrary to popular belief, most varieties of rice don’t need to be submerged. Farmers flood their fields primarily to kill diseases and weeds. Because rice is a semi-aquatic plant, it can survive the flooding.
In 2002, in an effort to combat a disease called red rice, scientists at the research station bred a mutated variety of rice resistant to the herbicide imazethapyr. It’s called “Clearfield Rice” and has reduced water usage by about 30%.
“The rice industry is constantly striving to use less water,” said Adam Famoso, a research station professor of rice breeding and genetics. “It’s a sustainability and environmental issue; we want to make sure the aquifers are not depleted.”
Saving water also saves money, he said. Laser-graded fields drain more efficiently. Pumping water into fields with slotted polymer pipes ensures a more even flood.
But these practices haven’t slowed the Chicot’s drawdown. Over the past 100 years, the aquifer’s groundwater levels have declined by as much as 50 feet in some high rice-producing areas, USGS data shows. Levels tend to recover somewhat when farmers aren’t irrigating their fields and can fluctuate by as much as 20 feet.
One solution is for farmers to stop drawing from the depleted aquifer and use surface water instead.
Richard, the rice farmer, pumps about half of his water from the Chicot. He gets the rest from a water catchment area he built. It can hold upward of 4.5 million gallons that he can use over and over.
Richard said his surface water pumps are more efficient and less costly to run because the water is closer to the field, not a hundred feet underground. His average groundwater well pumps 1,200 gallons a minute, he said. His surface water pumps move water 300% faster.
In a business that depends on the movement and control of water, that can mean a world of difference.
“Water is the most precious resource we have,” he said. “We can’t stop every gallon of water, but the more that we can stop and reuse the better off we’re going to be and the less we’re going to draw down on the aquifer.”
But most farmers above the Chicot Aquifer System don’t have access to surface water, let alone a water recovery system. In fact, most people in this part of the state don’t have access to surface water at all.
Hydrology professor Duex said that if the aquifer is drained or contaminated with salt water, desalination may be the only way to access water for drinking or irrigating fields.
But desalination plants in the Western U.S. have proved costly. One estimate put the cost of desalinated water at more than twice as much as conventional means of freshwater delivery.
“It’s a lot more expensive,” Duex said. “But if you need water and people are willing to pay for it, then there’s plenty of salt water in the ocean.”
(Part 3) An Aquifer at 'Special Risk': Industry Overuse Puts Capital City Drinking Water in Peril
March 10, 2021
BATON ROUGE, La. — Hays Town Jr. is an unlikely hero in the fight to save groundwater beneath Baton Rouge.
Until about 10 years ago, the 86-year-old retired contractor was like most of his neighbors in the city’s leafy Southdowns neighborhood near Louisiana State University; he simply didn’t put much thought into
the water flowing from his taps.
But then he went back to school and learned about hydrology and the movement of water underground. He got a master’s degree in climatology and wrote his thesis on the city’s freshwater supply.
“I became very concerned that the aquifer was in danger from saltwater intrusion,” said Town, who now leads Baton Rouge Citizens to Save Our Water Inc., a nonprofit fighting for more oversight of the water system.
The problem lies in the Southern Hills Aquifer System, an interconnected cluster of saturated sands deep beneath Baton Rouge. The aquifer provides water to 650,000 people in six parishes. It also supplies hundreds of oil and gas plants, chemical manufacturers and commercial support contractors along the Mississippi River.
The aquifer’s water is clean and pure. Baton Rouge residents brag about its taste. And industries prefer it because it’s cheaper to access than river water, which needs expensive treatment.
But the aquifer is being depleted faster than it is being replenished, just as it is in at least four of Louisiana’s 11 major aquifers.
Every day, Louisiana industries withdraw an average of more than 56 gallons of groundwater per person — more than anywhere else in the country. Oil and gas refineries, paper mills and other industries use more groundwater than industries in any other state, except California.
The Southern Hills Aquifer is at special risk.
An analysis of groundwater data by the Investigative Reporting Workshop and WWNO/WRKF shows it’s losing water faster than any other aquifer in the state — more than 50 feet in the last 50 years.
The aquifer is separated from salt water by a fault line that runs beneath Baton Rouge. When water is pumped out of the aquifer, it sucks salt water closer. If too much salt water gets in, the aquifer would be ruined. The city would have to turn to river water or desalination for its drinking water supply — both expensive options.
Salt water has already moved into public and private water wells near the city. If the aquifer continues to lose water at the current rate, salt water could contaminate the city’s entire freshwater supply in 50 to 100 years, according to state and U.S. Geological Survey research.
“Salt water encroachment is what’s killing us,” Town said.
Eight industrial users in Baton Rouge are responsible for more than a quarter of groundwater use in the entire six-parish region.
Pumpage rates analyzed by the IRW and WWNO/WRKF show that a Koch Industries-owned paper mill north of the city, six ExxonMobil Chemical plants on the eastern and western banks of the Mississippi River and a massive ExxonMobil oil refinery near downtown Baton Rouge used nearly 15.5 billion gallons of groundwater in 2019. That’s 28% of the 55 billion gallons of water all parishes withdrew.
Only the Baton Rouge Water Co., a private utility that supplies drinking water to more than half a million people in East Baton Rouge Parish, withdrew more water from the aquifer that year.
A new leader acknowledges problems
When Gary Beard took the helm of the Capital Area Ground Water Conservation Commission in September 2020, he didn’t exactly know what he had signed up for.
“No, I don’t think I knew at the time the extent of how deep the water was, so to speak,” he said.
Beard faced public criticism and a board beleaguered by charges of ethical violations.
The state Legislature established the commission in 1974. It’s the only regulatory body in Louisiana that can hold groundwater users accountable.
The commission has 18 members who represent industry, public water suppliers, state agencies and other stakeholders. They have authority to permit wells, levy annual fees on users and limit the amount of water that can be taken from the aquifer each day.
But the commission has been generous to heavy groundwater users.
An IRW analysis found that the daily limits the commission set in 2013 were lower than what users were withdrawing between 1988 and 2018.
In 2019, the Legislature called on the state’s Office of Conservation to review the commission’s work. That report said damage to the aquifer was “unacceptable” and recommended “substantive improvements” to the commission’s planning and operations.
That same year, the Legislative Auditor’s Office cited the commission for failing to keep a complete well inventory and for not monitoring pumping from all the wells it did have in its database. It found the commission hadn’t issued permits for nearly a quarter of the new wells constructed in the region since 1997.
“Essentially, the capital area has not effectively regulated groundwater usage from this aquifer,” said Gina Brown, a state performance audit manager who helped write that report. “The Southern Hills aquifer needs to be regulated, so it can continue to provide drinking water for the citizens for years to come.”
The audit also noted that several commission members were employed by companies the commission regulates, a violation of a Louisiana law that prohibits public servants from receiving anything of economic value from regulated people or entities.
In 2020, the Louisiana Board of Ethics charged five commissioners employed by the Baton Rouge Water Co., Entergy Corp., Georgia-Pacific and ExxonMobil with violating that law.
Beard, a wastewater reclamation engineer and former state legislator, said he can’t comment on ongoing litigation but said he’s working to right the ship.
“I’m not real sure how we got where we are today, but I know how we can get out, and that’s what I’m trying to focus on,” he said.
After Beard took the post last year, he reached out to the Auditor’s office to begin determining how to address the concerns in its reports.
“There’s no doubt that we are certainly depleting our groundwater resources,” Beard said. “Here in Louisiana, we have, for the longest time, had an abundance of groundwater, and we never had to look at other alternatives. I think the time has come where other alternatives need to be analyzed.”
The commission is working with The Water Institute of the Gulf on a study to assess groundwater needs, supply and potential actions, including alternative water sources — which could include the Mississippi River or reusing wastewater.
Beard said he had requested $1.8 million from the Legislature to pay for the first phase of the study. He plans to go back and ask for an additional $10 million to implement a new metering program and a database of existing wells. If the Legislature doesn’t approve the funds, Beard said the board might consider raising rates to cover the costs.
He said representatives from big industries are “on board” with the plan.
“I look forward to working with them over the next couple of years as the study is completed,” he said.
‘Pro-business and pro-fresh water’
Environmental groups as well as public and private domestic water suppliers have lobbied the commission to take a tougher approach with industries in and around Baton Rouge.
“We simply believe it’s best to reserve that water for the people,” said Adrienne Mire, vice president of administration for the Baton Rouge Water Co. “The aquifer is the best option to do so. If too much gets taken out and it’s depleted, then it no longer is that abundant resource we’ve grown to rely on.”
Town, the Baton Rouge activist, said industries should be required to end their reliance on the aquifer and use river water instead.
Conservation isn’t a political issue in Baton Rouge anymore, Town said. It’s a way of life.
“I’m very pro-business, but I’m also very pro-fresh water,” he said. “And I don’t want to see my grandchildren drinking river water when they should have fresh water. … God gave us fresh water and we ought to maintain it as best we can.”
Industries that have grown and flourished on the banks of the Mississippi River aren’t likely to give up their inexpensive groundwater that easily.
The cost of treating river water to make their products, cool heavy machinery or generate electricity might outweigh one of the perks that led them to Louisiana in the first place.
ExxonMobil officials said in a statement that the company already sources about half of its water from the river. Using more than that, the statement said, would affect plant efficiency.
Georgia-Pacific officials said they weren’t exploring alternative sources of water. But they expect their groundwater consumption to drop by roughly 70% because the company’s Port Hudson mill, the region’s largest industrial user, is shutting down its papers and pulping operations as a result of lower market demand.
The Baton Rouge Water Co. isn’t counting on the region’s industries to preserve the aquifer for its half a million customers. The utility has already bought land near the Mississippi River, preparing for the possibility it might one day be the region’s only reliable source of drinking water.
(Part 4) Solving Problems Now: Groundwater Threats Are Compounded by a Changing Climate
March 11, 2021
SIBLEY, La. — Louisiana is ground zero for climate change. Its coast is disappearing at a rate of a football field every hour and a half and hurricanes are growing more fierce, forcing residents to move north to higher ground. Rainfall is also increasing, creating floods so severe that, in 2017, some reporters covered New Orleans by canoe.
But while climate change has brought an abundance of water from above, it also threatens valuable water below — the groundwater in Louisiana’s aquifers that the majority of the population relies on for
drinking water.
In some parts of the state, officials are already envisioning a future where underground water runs dry.
In the tiny northern town of Sibley, population 1,218, Mayor Jimmy Williams is doing what he can to ensure his constituents will always have water to bathe, drink and do their laundry.
Officials in neighboring Bossier and Webster parishes proposed diverting 12 million gallons a day from a bayou that feeds Lake Bistineau in order to support growing demands on the outskirts of nearby Shreveport.
But Williams, whose town lies on the northernmost bank of the lake, blocked the project, saying his community’s residents might need that surface water someday.
“I really didn’t want to give our water away,” he said. “That’s actually what we’d be doing.”
Williams witnessed a 2010 drought that caused groundwater levels to drop and strained the cluster of aquifers that supply the city’s four wells. Salt water moved into surrounding community water wells, and he watched officials scramble to buy groundwater from neighboring parishes.
Williams said he also noticed that a growing number of industrial users, mostly paper mills, were moving into the area. And the populations of nearby Monroe and Bossier City were growing as people moved in to take advantage of the new jobs.
Everything pointed to a growing demand for water.
The IRW and WWNO/WRKF used USGS records to compile a subset of 2,000 wells that have reliable data. The analysis showed that groundwater levels across the state declined by an average of more than 10 inches a year over the last two decades. That means some wells could eventually dry up, land subsidence could increase and drinking water could be ruined by saltwater intrusion.
[We analyzed U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Data for Louisiana to determine the extent to which water levels have declined.]
Louisiana’s groundwater is exhaustible, he said, and one day it is going to be exhausted.
“When they turn on the water and there’s nothing there, then they’re going to be concerned,” the mayor said. “They’re going to be mad at the government. So we need to solve this problem now instead of waiting until it is too late.”
Williams’ solution is to preserve the bayou for his town’s future water needs well before the aquifers run dry.
But Gina Brown, a state performance auditor who has studied the state’s water management issues, said a better solution is for the state to budget its water like a bank account.
“We have an abundance of water, but we have no idea how much we need in the future,” she said. “Areas of the state, as we know, have either potentially been overpumped or, just due to natural circumstances, their wells run dry faster. They could run out of water, and then we eventually have to figure out how we get water to these areas.”
Premium Water
One obvious solution is for groundwater users to switch to surface water from the state’s many lakes, rivers and bayous.
Except in times of drought, surface water is abundant in northern Louisiana, but it comes with a catch. The cost of treating that water for contaminants and bacteria, which the groundwater recharge process naturally filters out, can be extremely high — in some cases, 200% or 300% more than the cost of pumping groundwater.
If Bossier and Webster parishes had been able to get water from Lake Bistineau, they would have had to revamp an abandoned water treatment plant at a former U.S. Army ammunition depot to process it — at a cost of tens of millions of dollars.
The cost of shifting a region from groundwater to surface water will fall on ratepayers, Williams said.
“Water in Louisiana is going to be the same as it is in California right now,” he said. “It’s going to be a premium.”
Failing Infrastructure
The northernmost parts of the state are not the only areas that could run out of water.
As the planet continues to warm and destructive storms become more routine, they’re likely to expose widespread disrepair in the Gulf region’s drinking water infrastructure. The state is not prepared for these threats. Louisiana’s drinking water infrastructure earned a failing grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2017.
After Hurricane Laura forced coastal residents in western Louisiana to evacuate, some returned to find their water systems upended.
The water tower in the tiny unincorporated town of Holly Beach — known as the “Cajun Riviera” — was toppled by the hurricane. Spencer and Carole Owens went for weeks without water.
“Showering with a bottle of water is not easy,” Spencer Owens said, laughing.
Just 7 feet above sea level, Holly Beach’s population decreases after every storm.
Cameron Parish Waterworks District 10, which serves Holly Beach, extracts groundwater from more than 20 miles to the north, and pumps it across an 80-mile distribution network down to the coast.
The entire system is maintained by two people who, among other things, clean up after storms to ensure tap water continues to flow. Rhonda Morrison, a District 10 administrator, said that’s becoming a way of life on the coast.
After Hurricane Ike in 2008, the district invested in new, elevated chlorine storage and control panels, which likely prevented even more damage from 2020’s Hurricane Laura. Other parts of the state weren’t so lucky.
More than 80 public and private water systems were temporarily shut off, and 33 remained off line nearly a month, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
But experts, including Robert Twilley, say it doesn’t have to be this way.
Twilley is executive director of the Sea Grant College Program based at Louisiana State University. The state, he said, could position itself to lead the nation in infrastructure investment because it’s facing the effects of climate change firsthand.
That said, he isn’t optimistic.
Twenty years ago, he co-authored a report by the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Ecological Society of America sounding the alarm about climate threats in Louisiana. But the problem still isn’t being addressed.
“We don’t think into the future well enough to protect our natural resources,” he said. “We end up spending so much more [in] tax dollars. We’re talking about tax revenues we’re going to put on the next generation to cover for the bad decisions that we make now for our resources, and we just do this over and over and over again.”
(Part 5) Looming Crisis: Lawmakers Sidestep Groundwater Concerns–for Decades
March 12, 2021
BATON ROUGE La. — State Rep. Denise Marcelle was born and raised in Baton Rouge. Like many residents, she’s always appreciated the crystal clear water here — drawn from deep in the Southern Hills Aquifer System.
“We have some of the best water in the world,” she said.
But for years, Marcelle, who is a Democrat, has warned of a looming crisis
in the aquifer. Energy companies and big industry are drawing vast amounts of water. And the withdrawals are allowing salt water to move in, threatening the main source of drinking water for a growing population of more than half a million.
Marcelle has been a state legislator since 2016, and her first piece of legislation directly tackled the city’s imminent water crisis.
“Why not do what’s right for people?” she asked.
Her legislation died in committee. So she tried again the next year and the next and the next and the next.
But all five of her bills died in the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee.
More than a quarter of members of that House committee have direct financial ties to major groundwater users, according to a database the IRW and WWNO/WRKF created. It uses financial disclosure statements and campaign finance reports for the 25 lawmakers now on the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee and the Senate’s Environmental Quality Committee. All but three of the committee members have recently accepted money from major groundwater users.
“I found out that there are certain issues, and groundwater is one of them, that legislators refuse to touch because of large industry here,” Marcelle said. “Those committees are stacked so that you can’t get anything out of them that a certain group of people don’t want out of them.”
The wrong kind of water
Louisiana has lots of water. But most of it is surface water — in rivers, lakes, bayous and from rain. It’s costly to treat to make it safe to drink, so most Louisianans and many industries, including agriculture, use groundwater instead.
At least three of the state’s 11 major aquifers are being drained faster than they can be replenished. The IRW and WWNO/WRKF investigation reveals that four are in danger of saltwater intrusion, a result of overdrawing. Hydrologists say that once that happens, an aquifer can be ruined.
[We analyzed U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Data for Louisiana to determine the extent to which water levels have declined.]
State leaders have been aware of the problem for decades.
The Legislature has commissioned at least 12 taxpayer-funded studies since the early 1900s, and nearly all came to the same conclusion: The state should create a comprehensive water management plan and gather more data to inform future policies.
But no plan has been passed.
Many of the House and Senate committee members are farmers who use groundwater to irrigate their crops. Others work for oil and gas contractors who rely heavily on groundwater for industrial use.
Republican House Natural Resources and Environment Committee Chairman Jean-Paul Coussan did not respond to multiple requests for comment. After reading the first part of this series, Republican Senate Environmental Quality Committee Chairman Eddie Lambert said he was concerned about the issue.
“I may be looking at this,” he said. “We need to do a comprehensive study.”
“Pristine drinking water should not be used by industry or agriculture,” Lambert added.
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards declined to comment.
The state’s four largest private-interest groups gave more than $170,000 in campaign contributions to committee members in the five years since Marcelle began introducing groundwater bills.
In 2019, Marcelle tried a different tact: She asked the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office to step in.
The auditor’s office investigated the Capital Area Ground Water Conservation Commission, which is supposed to oversee the Southern Hills aquifer in the Baton Rouge area.
The findings were scathing. The report highlighted conflicts of interest and rampant mismanagement. It found that 50 years after the commission was formed, salt water continues to creep in. Some groundwater levels decreased 50 feet during that period — a massive drop given that the average depth to the water table is 41 feet, according to USGS water level data.
“The commission does not effectively regulate water withdrawals from the aquifer to reduce and manage saltwater encroachment and ensure the sustainability of fresh groundwater for the future,” the report said.
It also found that two major companies use more than a quarter of the region’s water. ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery, one of the largest in the world, and a Georgia Pacific plant that makes paper towels and toilet paper — used 55 billion gallons in 2019.
Gina Brown, the auditor who co-wrote that report, said the commission needs to limit industrial water use.
“We don't have an abundance of water,” she said. “The Southern Hills aquifer needs to be regulated so that it can continue to provide drinking water for the citizens for years to come.”
A year later, Brown and her team at the Legislative Auditor’s Office opened a new investigation into groundwater resource management statewide.
Their findings called for the Legislature to create a groundwater resource management plan, just as those earlier reports recommended. It also outlined a series of corrective measures to reverse groundwater overuse — all of which would require action by the Legislature.
Whose job is this?
Technically, Louisiana’s Department of Natural Resources oversees groundwater. But the Legislature has given the DNR only limited authority and few enforcement powers. The agency’s Office of Conservation can flag “areas of groundwater concern,” but the law requires water users themselves to request the designation.
In 2005 — at the request of the Sparta Ground Water Conservation Commission — the DNR flagged the Sparta Aquifer in northwest Louisiana as being at-risk because of overpumping, largely by industry.
But the Sparta commission can’t limit pumping in the aquifer and the designation did little to curb industry overuse.
It called for an “aggressive water conservation education program” and for monthly reports showing water level measurements “when available.” It encouraged water users to find other water sources, but didn’t limit the amount they could withdraw from the aquifer.
The DNR took a similarly weak response in 2011 when a statewide drought caused water levels to drop substantially in the endangered Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, which serves millions of people in Louisiana and Texas. The emergency orders called only for a reduction in groundwater use to the “maximum extent possible.”
“At the end of the day, there’s only so much we have the authority to do,” DNR Communications Director Patrick Courreges told the IRW and WWNO/WRKF. “This is stuff the Legislature needs to look at, and that’s what we are kind of running into. Folks that I work with, we feel like we’re right up against the edge of our regulatory authority.”
Some kind of plan
Marcelle supports creating a statewide water management plan. She also wants the state to update its antiquated water code, which makes groundwater a free-for-all among users. Louisiana is one of just 17 states that don’t give preference to the public in the allocation of groundwater resources.
In 2015, the Legislature took a step in that direction when it authorized the Louisiana State Law Institute to study the water code and make recommendations to update it. But other than filing annual reports, the institute hasn’t made any formal recommendations.
Committee chair Mark Davis has been pushing for a comprehensive water code for more than a decade. He directs Tulane University’s Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy and is an expert in water resource management.
“The more we saw, the more we realized that people were hoping water would be managed smartly for great public benefit,” he said. “We just couldn't find that it was anyone’s job to do it.”
The committee’s work, Davis said, has been slowed by major storms and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In short, this is like pulling a stagecoach with a team of horses,” he said. “The stage does not move at the pace of the fastest horse.”
Until the groundwater law is updated, Davis said Louisiana’s water remains up for grabs. “Individuals and fate” are controlling the state’s water for now, he said. “Whether you do the best job or the worst job, someone should be accountable for the job.”
A local solution
Without a statewide groundwater management plan — or laws that give regulators more teeth — the task of protecting water has been left to local governments.
One of the most farsighted efforts took place nearly 20 years ago in the northern Louisiana town of West Monroe.
Its 12,000 residents rely on the Sparta Aquifer for water. So does the major employer in town, a paper mill that’s the single largest groundwater user in Louisiana’s portion of the aquifer. Graphic Packaging International produces beverage containers for companies such as Capri Sun and has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the local economy.
The Sparta is one of the state’s most heavily used aquifers; 15 parishes in northeast Louisiana rely on it for fresh water, and drinking water remains the aquifer’s biggest demand. But industrial wells consume greater individual quantities of water at faster rates, drawing down the aquifer in hyper-local areas. A 1994 U.S. Geological Survey analysis found that the Sparta was being overdrawn by nearly 18 million gallons a day — and that Graphic Packaging was responsible for nearly a quarter of the daily excess in West Monroe. So much water had been withdrawn that three colossal underground cones of depression have formed in northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas. Groundwater levels near these depressions had plummeted on average more than 1 foot a year for the last 20 years, USGS experts said.
In 1999, the Legislature established the Sparta Groundwater Conservation District to protect the aquifer. But it didn’t give the district any regulatory power to tell the paper mill to stop using so much water.
So West Monroe took action.
Terry Emory, West Monroe’s environmental quality manager, said the town had to do something to save its seven drinking water wells from running dry or being ruined by salt water sucked into the aquifer by overpumping.
“If they continued to draw all that water, we would lose our drinking water,” Emory said. “They were using 10 million gallons a day out of the river [and] 10 million gallons a day out of the aquifer.”
The city decided to expand its wastewater treatment plant and offer the treated water to the mill. They called it the Sparta Reuse Facility after the aquifer it was meant to save.
Emory said it was a challenge to persuade residents the project was needed.
“We took care of the problem before they had a problem,” Emory said. “If we had waited until it’s too late, then everybody would have been in trouble.”
The project was funded by a combination of state and federal revolving loans, state infrastructure capital outlay and a combined $700,000 from the city and sewer district. Graphic Packaging paid only for the piping to connect to the water the new treatment plant was producing.
“This whole entire area is very economically dependent on that paper mill, so it was really important for us to keep them here,” Emory said.“The agreement with them was that if we could produce water that met all EPA primary and secondary drinking water standards, that they would accept the water. Gallon-for-gallon, the amount of water that we could send them, they would not draw out of wells, and they have held to that agreement.”
Graphic Packaging declined to comment for this story but confirmed information about the treatment plant.
Today, the mill draws about 10 million gallons of water from the river, 5 million gallons from the aquifer and another 5 million gallons from the Sparta Reuse Facility. Officials hope to expand the plant’s capacity so it can draw down the mill’s reliance on groundwater even more.
The aquifer is showing signs of recovery.
In conjunction with another water supply project in Union County, Arkansas, major industries have reduced groundwater consumption in the aquifer by more than 10 million gallons a day, according to USGS estimates.
“At the center of the depression, they have seen over a 100-foot rise in their water wells,” said Lindsay Goudey, the Sparta Groundwater Conservation Commission’s education coordinator. “And that just stands out like a ripple effect. So we benefit from Arkansas and their conservation efforts. Likewise, they would benefit from our conservation efforts.”
The bigger problem, Goudey said, is lack of data because it’s hard to protect the water if you don’t know how much there is.
“If you don’t know what you’re aiming at, you’ll miss it every time,” Goudey said. “And we don’t know what we’re aiming at.”
As the region’s population grows, the need for better data is greater than ever, she said. Of the 160,000 recent well measurements the IRW and WWNO/WRKF analyzed in Louisiana, just 9,834 were in the Sparta Aquifer, compared with 46,000 in the Chicot and Southern Hills aquifer systems. USGS estimates are released every five years in Louisiana; the latest report cites 2015 data.
Marcelle, the legislator who spearheaded efforts at fixing Louisiana’s groundwater woes, is discouraged by the lack of progress on compiling more robust data and developing a statewide management plan.
But she said she would keep reintroducing her bills and working to resolve the state’s precarious water situation.
(Methodology) How We Measured Louisiana From the Ground(water) Up
March 8, 2021
The Investigative Reporting Workshop and WWNO/WRKF analyzed U.S. Geological Survey Groundwater Data for Louisiana to determine the extent to which water levels have declined over time in the state’s public and private wells. Along with USGS data scientists, reporters created a subset of the state’s roughly 31,000 well sites they called Louisiana’s Active Groundwater Monitoring Network. Wells included in the network were classified as active by the USGS and had recorded at least one measurement within the last three years.
Using a standard programming language for relational databases, reporters organized individual well measurements by date and calculated annual differences and net averages by well, aquifer and region.
Average changes in feet-below-land-surface were plotted using open-source mapping software. Measures of total groundwater position were calculated both by determining average net change and eliminating outlier data.
The IRW and WWNO/WRKF used USGS National Water-Use Science Project and U.S. Census data to compile a database of per-capita and per-square-mile groundwater use in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and each parish in Louisiana. Local groundwater use is estimated every five years in the U.S., so reporters input more than 10 years of estimated data to model averages in each state and in Louisiana’s Carrizo-Wilcox, Catahoula, Cockfield, Evangeline, Mississippi River Alluvial, Red River Alluvial, Sparta and Upland Terrace aquifers and Chicot, Jasper and Southern Hills aquifer systems.
To measure industrial and agricultural influence on the Louisiana Legislature’s House Natural Resources and Environment Committee and Senate Environmental Quality Committee, the IRW and WWNO/WRKF manually examined financial disclosure reports for each of the committees’ 25 members and compiled five years worth of campaign finance disclosures from the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program.
Using spreadsheet software, reporters scraped 18,000 individual campaign contributions for keywords associated with oil and gas companies, chemical producers, major agricultural operations and all of their related political action committees or trade organizations and cross-referenced contributions with corresponding individual or lobbying disclosures.