NEW ORLEANS — A saltwater intrusion from the Gulf of Mexico predicted to reach metro New Orleans by the middle of this month has slowed, a relief to emergency officials and communities who were bracing for the worst.

The massive saltwater wedge moving up the Mississippi River, the area’s main source of drinking water, threatened to expose close to a million residents in four parishes to dangerous levels of salt water. Now, the saltwater wedge has slowed considerably. As of last week, it hasn’t moved for 10 days and remains at a standstill 20 miles south of the city.

New predictions announced by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers last week suggest it likely won’t reach far enough upriver to threaten the drinking supply for most of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes.

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“This updated projection is clearly a relief to all of us,” said Collin Arnold, director of the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “But our job in emergency management is to help prepare for the worst. I think we all believe that we will face this again at some point.”

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the updated projection of the creeping saltwater wedge on Oct. 5. Video by PBS NewsHour

Historic low river levels for the second year in a row have left the Mississippi River susceptible to water flowing up from the Gulf of Mexico.

For the last few weeks, emergency officials were desperately searching for other sources of fresh water, anticipating unsafe drinking water. Despite the new improved predictions, officials are still moving ahead with precautions for areas that have already been affected. The latest close call has raised questions and deepened concerns about the mighty Mississippi River, which is steadily drying up and slowing down. Corps officials stressed river levels will likely remain low through January, and they noted that forecasts could again change.

Similar saltwater intrusions have happened about once every decade, including in 1988, 1999, 2012, and 2022. Louisiana has in the past averted major problems from high levels of salt water, like damaging pipes and water intake systems, as well as being a danger to people on low-sodium diets. But this is the second such event in as many years. Leaders say it’s taking longer for the region to recover from back-to-back years of low river flow, which points to the urgency for long-term solutions.

While it seems a worst-case scenario won’t play out this time, smaller communities like Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes are already inundated with salt. Plaquemines Parish has relied on bottled water for bathing, cooking, and drinking since June. The Corps will have to continue to barge more than eight million gallons of fresh water a day to flush out its water systems.

What is happening with the Mississippi River right now?

Water levels have drastically dropped due to extreme heat and drought intensified by climate change, slowing the river’s powerful current. The U.S. Drought Monitor map in September showed that a majority of the Mississippi River Basin, which stretches 2,350 miles, is experiencing extreme or exceptional drought conditions.

How much water flows through the river and how quickly is key to prevent salt water from intrusion. The Corps said the river was flowing at 150,000 cubic feet per second, half of what is needed to keep salt water out.

A river gauge marks record low water levels on the Mississippi River at New Orleans for the second year in a row. The low levels are caused by heat and low rainfall triggered by extreme drought along the Mississippi River Basin. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Rain can help. But that “would require about 10 inches across the entire Mississippi Valley for us to get flows above 300,000 cubic feet per minute,” Col. Cullen Jones, commander of the Corps’ New Orleans office, told the New Orleans City Council in late September.

The major change in the timeline is partially due to more water than expected flowing down the river. But it’s been a wake-up call for the region to upgrade water plants, expand pipeline networks, and make other improvements.

Jones said strategic mitigation work to heighten an existing underwater levee or sill, among other precautions, has diminished the emergency. The improved outlook also comes following new flow forecasts that predict a slowdown of the wedge’s intrusion upriver.

“We are ahead of schedule,” Jones said. “Our daily surveys show the salt water that overtops the sill has less density and salinity than that behind the wedge.”

The new track now predicts the saltwater intrusion will only reach smaller water intakes in the community of Algiers, located just across the Mississippi River from the historic French Quarter district, and not until Nov. 23, a month later than originally expected.

Other help came from the Mississippi River’s depth at the salt water’s current location. Salt water had already advanced nearly 70 miles up the river. During the past month, the saltwater wedge traveled 15 miles upriver in one week but came to a standstill last week. Jones said it was due to it settling in a 120-foot-deep hole in the river.

“It’s been filling in a very deep pocket in the river, giving us more time, a lot more … When you look at what has changed, it is because we beat the original forecast,” Jones said. “As we increased the height of the sill, we’re getting an additional speed bump.

How did the outlook change?

Emergency management officials have been collaborating for weeks and were moving with deliberate speed on various plans to dilute the salt in water systems, including building expensive pipelines, barging in fresh water from further upriver, installing desalination equipment, and augmenting the underwater dam in the Mississippi River to slow the progress of the saltwater intrusion.

Gov. John Bel Edwards meets on Sept. 29 with several parish presidents and officials from the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, the Louisiana Department of Health, and the US Army Corps of Engineers to discuss mitigation efforts. Photo courtesy of governor’s office

After meeting with state and local emergency management officials and Corps representatives, Gov. John Bel Edwards sounded the warning on Sept. 22. He called the situation serious but urged people not to panic.

“We will get through this just as we have with other emergencies and that is by working together,” Edwards said.

Edwards stressed that the emergency requires a well-planned engineering response, multiple mitigation efforts, and regional cooperation.

“This is a very challenging situation. There is not one thing that is going to solve this challenge for us. It will be a combination of lots of different efforts,” Edwards said as planning got underway.

President Joe Biden declared a federal emergency in Louisiana on Sept. 22, which quickly brought federal disaster assistance and helped ramp up mitigation efforts.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to barge freshwater to riverside parishes to be used by water treatment facilities in four parishes to dilute the saltwater. The Corps has the capability of delivering 36 million gallons of water per day via barge in response to the saltwater intrusion. Photo courtesy of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The Corps vowed to transport via barge as much as 36 million gallons of fresh river water daily into the region to dilute the saltiness to safe levels. In recent days, barges began rushing in 15 million gallons of fresh water collected from further upstream to mix with the intake at affected riverside water treatment plants to dilute salt water.

Rural areas also started to use salt-filtering equipment to supplement the barge water. Plaquemines Parish acquired three desalination units to filter salt water for all five of its water treatment plants and are already cleaning water for the Parish’s 22,800 residents.

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Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, with a combined population of more than 800,000 people, put their hopes in constructing pipelines because barge water would not be sufficient. For example, New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city’s Carrollton water treatment facility uses 141 million gallons each day. Now, the prediction is that the plant may not experience saltwater intrusion.

Orleans Parish leaders planned to mitigate the saltwater intrusion by building a $250 million pipeline that would supply freshwater from further upriver to it’s large Carrollton water plant which treats between 130 and 150 million gallons of water a day, because barge water would not be sufficient. Photo by Roby Chavez/PBS Newshour

To buy some time, the Corps started dredging the Mississippi to increase the height of the underwater sill by 25 feet. It was expected to slow the saltwater by 10 to 15 days. In reality, it created a month’s delay.

In populous Jefferson Parish, which borders New Orleans, workers rushed to start construction of a 14-mile flexible pipeline. The multimillion-dollar project is designed to transport fresh water from further upriver where the salt level is expected to remain much lower.

Despite the changing timeline, that work will continue. “Due to the nature of this changing environment and that we’re going to get new forecasts every week, we certainly don’t want to lose any time or get flat-footed if something were to change on us,” Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng said. “We want to see if this works.”

By Oct. 4, work on their pipeline in Jefferson Parish was well underway but work had not started in New Orleans. Mayor Cantrell said she was confident enough of the pipeline could be built in time to maintain safe drinking water during the saltwater emergency. Now, it won’t be necessary and the hugely expensive pipeline could be avoided if predictions hold.

Instead, Orleans Parish is shifting its focus to ensure fresh water at the smaller river intake in Algiers, a New Orleans neighborhood that sits across the river from the city’s French Quarter, where saltwater intrusion is expected on Nov. 23.

Dire predictions about the threat to safe drinking water in the New Orleans area had shoppers panic buying and stocking up on supplies of bottled water. Store shelves resembled what happens during a hurricane warning, but Governor John Bel Edwards cautioned there was no need to hoard water and supplies were plentiful. Photo by Roby Chavez/PBS Newshour

The pipeline plan came with a hefty $250 million price tag and the Sewerage & Water Board of New Orleans is glad to have more time to rebid the plans and not be rushed.

“We intend to stand the course until the situation is completely resolved,” said Ron Spooner, the board’s interim general superintendent. “Today is truly the answer to all of our collective prayers. This gives us time for more planning what we need to do.”

Spooner said it’s possible that the sewerage and water board will postpone parts of the plan to explore more permanent solutions.

“This is a regional effort — state, local, and federal level — because the more we look into it, the magnitude of the solutions is quite expensive,” Spooner said as planning started several weeks ago.

What are the health issues caused by saltwater intrusion?

When salt levels go above 250 parts per million, as they already have reached in Plaquemines Parish, they pose a risk to individuals on low-sodium diets; those with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, or kidney disease; as well as dialysis patients, infants, and pregnant people, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.

“For the vast majority of people, you will stop drinking the water because it doesn’t taste well before it becomes a danger to your health,” Louisiana state health officer Dr. Joseph Kanter said.

Health officials also note salt water is not appropriate for pets to drink.

Over time, high levels of salt water can cause damage to plumbing, appliances, cooling systems that use water, and water heaters in homes and buildings. Emergency management officials say sodium cannot be easily removed from drinking water through boiling or conventional filtration like Brita filters.

Salt water can accelerate the corrosion of pipes in water distribution systems. Health officials say saltwater intrusion could corrode lead and galvanized steel pipes, possibly leaching heavy metals into drinking water, depending on how long the emergency lasts.

“This is similar to what happened in Flint, Michigan – incoming water was not treated properly and led to corrosion of lead pipes throughout the system,” according to a statement from the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. “This contaminated Flint’s water system with heavy metals such as lead and copper, which left water undrinkable and required a major effort to replace corroded pipes.”

Sewerage and water board officials acknowledged that salt water could increase lead contamination but said it’s too early to predict the severity. Kanter said very frequent testing will be required.

“Any speculation about impacts is premature, but we are working diligently with top experts at Louisiana Dept. of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency to prepare to increase our frequency of lead testing and address impacts swiftly with a full range of resources,” a sewerage and water board spokesperson said in an email to the Times-Picayune.

While the clock has slowed and it appears that the major population centers’ water intake systems may be spared, emergency officials say the goal remains the same even if they are breathing a bit easier as they drink a cold glass of water — sans the salt.

To maintain as close as possible the normal operations of our water treatment facilities and drinking water capabilities across the impacted area,” said Casey Tingle from the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness.

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