As a water professional, I of course have access to cutting edge sources of news in my sector not available to the general public. I first heard about the saltwater intrusion situation in New Orleans from a random drunk guy in a bar the other day.

Because of the drought across the Mississippi River Valley, salt water is creeping upriver, where many communities, including New Orleans, draw their drinking water.

Axios

So not enough water coming from upstream to keep the saltwater from the ocean at bay. I wonder how much effect sea level rise has on this right now. In the future, it certainly will, and climate change may cause more and frequent droughts, although I don’t know what the forecast is for the U.S. Gulf region specifically.

This appears to be a short-term phenomenon. The salt will come and go. Cities will figure out how to get safe drinking water to people, they will keep the taps on so people can take showers and wash their clothes and fire fighters can fight fires, and they will assess any damage from corrosion after it passes. If it happens more frequently though, it seems like we need more of a plan than this. And groundwater salt intrusion is a longer-term, slower-onset issue but once it is there it is going to stay there in many cases.

So both flooding and drought are going to impact our coastal cities, like a one-two punch, over and over again. We might be able to deal with it for awhile, but if the recovery is not quite complete each time there is an episode, the impacts will accumulate over time until finally, there is some big event that is the one a city can’t recover from.