"Eleven Leagues Below This City [of New Orleans]": The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "The Plantation in the Right-of-Way: Data Recovery at St. Rosalie Plantation, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, a keystone project of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority's (CRPAs's) Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, is sited approximately thirty miles downriver of New Orleans, on the right descending bank of the Mississippi River. The Army Corps of Engineers proposed this project in the 1960s as a concept to reconnect the river to the Barataria Basin to sustain and nourish wetlands and the fauna dependent on wetland vegetation. Federal studies over decades reviewed several locations; CPRA's selected location is a sediment-rich bend in the river. The diversion channel will cross the St. Rosalie Plantation Site (16PL107), an abandoned sugar plantation with ante- and post-bellum components. The land encompassing the former plantation had been proposed for industrial development prior to CPRA's project. This paper will present a brief history of the diversion project, previous investigations at 16PL107, and the Section 106 consultation for the Project.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Plantation in the Right-of-Way: Data Recovery at St. Rosalie Plantation, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow