Title VII of the Water Resources Development Act: Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Restoration
Semester
Professor Heikkila also led the fall workshop on the Title VII of the Water Resources Development Act: Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Restoration. The legislative goals of the act are to protect and restore the Louisiana coastal ecosystem while minimizing infrastructure and economic damage from storming and flooding. The legislative mandate on which the group focused is the Ecosystem Restoration Task Force, for which the group created operational and staffing plans. Professor Heikkila's group analyzed the politics behind the protection that this task force seeks to implement. The group outlined objectives to balance protection and restoration and to strengthen assessment systems. The group spent the final weeks of the workshop focusing on contracting and staffing, creating a master calendar, and planning the act's budget and revenues.