Venice, LA Coastal Erosion Rate
What USGS measures 7 miles southwest of Venice, LA
Good news, and an honest one: USGS's data can't distinguish this stretch, 7 miles southwest of Venice, LA, from a flat trend. Whatever small movement it measured here is statistical noise, not a reliable direction, so none is claimed.
What "Venice" means on this page
USGS surveys the coast in transects spaced a few hundred feet apart; this page groups the nearest ones into a single ~3.5-mile reading for the stretch closest to Venice, LA, rather than showing one arbitrary line. Segment center: 29.21, -89.44. The survey behind it runs to 2001, in USGS's Gulf of Mexico assessment, using the LRR method. Shoreline surveys aren't repeated every year, so this is the most recent long-term measurement USGS has published for this coast, not a live reading.
What backs this reading up
37 transects feed this segment's number; 0% of them individually measured retreat. USGS's confidence interval here is ±11.81 ft/yr. The unadjusted figure here, 3.94 ft/yr, would place it 1191 of 1211 if ranked directly - but an unreliable rank isn't a useful one, which is exactly why "no significant trend" is the headline instead. Source: USGS Open-File Report 2004-1089. For scale: Chincoteague, VA, 1014 miles away, ranks 1111 of 1211 nationally for growth, 1.04 ft/yr. Triumph, LA, 4.2 miles off, is the adjacent measured stretch, reading severe erosion at 6.26 ft/yr.
Venice, LA on the source map: try the Coastal Change Hazards Portal, zoomable well past this page's ~3.5-mile grain.