Nearly 18 months after the Deepwater Horizon disaster brought attention to Louisiana's disappearing coastal wetlands, a federal-state task force released a strategy today for rebuilding the ecosystem damaged by decades of oil and gas exploration and the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

The Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force's 112-page report paints a picture in broad brush strokes of what the environmental restoration should entail across the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

"This strategy is designed to prepare the region for transitioning from a response to the spill into a long-term recovery that supports the vital ecosystem and the people who depend on it," said EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, a New Orleans native.

The Gulf Coast provided 30 percent of the nation's gross domestic product in 2009. It is the home of 90 percent of U.S. offshore oil and gas production, a major seafood industry, a major port and a busy tourism trade.

But accommodating the oil and gas and shipping industries has taken a toll on natural resources. Drilling rigs and a network of pipelines have been built in marshes as the Mississippi River was being deepened by dredges and straightened to accommodate barges. Levees cut off wetlands from the river that once distributed sediments across the Mississippi Delta to rebuild marshes.

So wetlands -- buffers for storm surges and nurseries for marine life -- are disappearing at the rate of a football field every 38 minutes.

Adding to the decline is the agricultural and urban runoff from 41 percent of the continental United States that are funneled down the Mississippi River. Nutrients spurred the formation of a summer Gulf "dead zone," a swath the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined, where dissolved oxygen levels are too low to support marine life.

The restoration strategy outlines three recommendations: Stop the loss of wetlands with sediment and freshwater distribution, reduce nutrients by curbing pollution, and enhance resiliency of the coastal communities with "smart growth" and education strategies.

"It highlights the key issues that really demand immediate attention and sets out the broad strategies that need to be undertaken to make restoration a reality," said Paul Harrison, senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund for the Mississippi River Delta.

He urged that the final draft include more concrete specifics of steps to be taken.

"We've got an urgent need now to translate these words into action," he said, "so we're hoping the final report will include specific steps that can be taken to address these pressing needs."

La. recommendations

Missing from the document are recommendations from Louisiana that are expected to be released Friday as an appendix to the strategy and to outline near-term projects that can be undertaken by the Army Corps of Engineers.

"The task force's draft strategy identifies fundamental obstacles that have plagued restoration and protection efforts in Louisiana and other states for decades," said Garrett Graves, senior coastal adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) and co-chairman of the task force. "The report attempts to begin reversing 80 years of mismanagement."

The appendix is expected to include specific recommendations, including the 2007 authorization of a suite of restoration projects known as Louisiana Coastal Area, or LCA.

First offered in 1998 as a $14 billion package, the LCA was scaled back to $2 billion worth of projects. Despite its 2007 authorization, it has received only a trickle of funding and sits in a more than $60 billion backlog of authorized-yet-still-unfunded Army Corps projects.

President Obama sought $20 million in his 2012 budget request to begin LCA construction, a key hurdle that vastly improves the project's chances. But Senate appropriators, however, passed a spending bill that omitted the LCA.

The report comes the same day the House lawmakers from the Gulf Coast are expected to reveal their chamber's version of a bill that would divert 80 percent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill penalties to the five Gulf states for economic and environmental restoration.

A Senate committee passed its own bill to send spill fines to the Gulf late last month (Greenwire, Sept. 21).

Total penalties are expected to amount to between $5 billion and $20 billion.

The report is open for a 30-day public review and comment period.