NEW ORLEANS — After 20 years of delay, Congress passed and the President signed a bill to allocate $7 million to move the Army Corps of Engineers’ Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) Ecosystem Restoration Plan forward.

This is the first meaningful federal funding that will lead to plan implementation and it marks a major milestone for the thousands of citizens who have tirelessly advocated for coastal restoration in the years since Hurricane Katrina. 

“The scale of the harm caused by the MRGO shipping channel is difficult to fully comprehend,” said Amanda Moore, senior director of NWF’s Gulf Program and coordinator of the MRGO Must Go coalition, which has pushed for restoration along the MRGO since 2006. “This is a long-overdue victory for the communities that are still feeling the impacts of Katrina, two decades later. The projects outlined in the plan will provide essential habitat for ‘Sportsman’s Paradise,’ and, most importantly, protect communities from future storms. The work must remain a priority for the Corps, and community engagement should be a significant part of the upcoming design process. Further delays are unacceptable.”

The funding, which is part of the Fiscal Year 2026 Energy and Water Appropriations Act, passed the House and Senate earlier in January as part of the larger “minibus” package and was signed by President Trump on Friday night.

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, constructed in southeast Louisiana in the 1960s and opposed by locals since its inception, funneled saltwater into freshwater swamps in the years after its construction, eroding wetlands and killing cypress forests, both of which protected coastal communities and wildlife. Over one million acres of coastal habitat were impacted by the federal shipping channel. During Hurricane Katrina, the channel funneled the devastating storm surge to the heart of the New Orleans area, leading to multiple levee failures. 

The channel was first closed with a rock dam in 2009 and again with the $1B Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Surge Barrier in 2013, but ecosystem restoration has been held up for decades despite the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 authorizing the plan’s development and feasibility study, and the 2022 water bill clarifying the plan as 100% federally funded.

Louisiana is the non-federal sponsor and together with local governments, community and advocacy groups, the state will continue to play a key role in moving this massive ecosystem restoration process forward, potentially bringing billions of dollars in restoration funding to southeast Louisiana in the process.