Cajun Pain As Wetlands Drain

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU KEEP MESSIN'G WITH MOJO NATURE?

The same thing that always happens. Mojo Nature wins.

In the case of the Cajun Bayou country of Southeastern Louisiana, salt water is replacing the vibrant marshlands of southeastern Louisiana at an alarming rate. It's the fastest disappearing land mass on earth, although far from the only one. The rate of subsidence is 20 square miles a year, so fast that change in the coastline is visible year to year on satellite photos. This is an area about the size of Manhattan, but you can bet that if Manhattan we about to wash away, there would be swift action.

Thirty years ago, the "living-off-the-land" culture of Southeastern Louisiana was still thriving amidst the natural bounty of the Gulf of Mexico: shrimping, fishing, hunting; then later: oil. What happened to change things? An unhealthy combination of the Army Corps of Engineers, Global Warming, Big Oil and a special guest appearance by a nasty chick name of Katrina.

As the marshes disappear, so does the state's natural hurricane protection barrier. Along with it go vast acres of Gulf fisheries and nurseries, coastal cultures, and the once vast protective wetlands needed to protect the nation's domestic oil and gas infrastructure from the onslaught of Katrina-wannabees.

Sounds like an emergency happening before our very eyes, but what's being done about it? About nothing. Although a few modest efforts have been undertaken over the past few decades, not a single major project capable of reversing the trend currently awaits approval.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

It took the Mississippi River many thousands of years to build the Louisiana coast. It took man 70 years to wash away roughly 33% of it. Now the ghost trees line Route 1, remnants of once might live oak, drowned and poisoned by sea water from the Gulf. Most experts cpnclude we have less than a decade to act before the loss becomes irreversible (see next column for more).

For millenia, the Louisiana coast depended on the cyclical overflow of the Mississippi River to deposit its sediment load and build land, marshes and wetlands. But, beginning around the 1930s, the federal government built massive levees to constrain and control the river in the interest of protecting New Orleans, effectively stopping it from doing what nature wants it to do. Next, as oil, gas and shipping grew, thousands of canals were dredged across the fragile wetlands to expedite the needs of commerce.

As a result, for the past 70 years or so, the sinking of the delta coast has continued unabated, with the pace picking up over the past three decades. As salt water pushes inland from the gulf, it kills wetlands and marshes and with them, habitat for wildlife and fish. The sea has already wiped out towns and islands in the wetland areas an hour south of New Orleans. Tens of thousands of people are under imminent threat of involuntary emigration. Ironically, New Orleans is now more at risk than ever.

What's coming: Unless the state rapidly reverses the land loss, coastal scientists say by the middle of the next decade - that's 1015 - the cost of repair likely will be too high for our chicken shit Congress to swallow. Plus, it will also already be too late.

There are other more troubling consequences as well, scenarios for which Katrina may well have provided a sneak preview. See next column for more.

HELL WITH THE CAJUNS!

Sure they're colorful, but can't the just move to a nice subdivision in Sliddell. They used to moving, right? We've got all their gumbo recipes by now don't we? Tell me something that affects ME!

Well hey, this might affect YOU.

There's a section of the Mississippi River called Cancer Alley that runs between New Orleans and Baton Rouge on the side of the River Road tourists don't see. There are 140 chemical plants along this picturesque stretch of poisoned landscape. These plants are legendary for their emissions and the elevated incidence of cancers in neighboring communities. But in Louisiana, pretty much no one gives a rats ass.

During and after Katrina and Rita, five Superfund sites in the area flooded. Elsewhere in southern Louisiana, an estimated seven million gallons of oil seeped out of gas stations, offshore rigs and coastal refineries; sewers burst and flooded, sending a stew of fossil fuels and putrid waste across the landscape.

In St. Bernard Parish, home to multiple oil refineries and power plants, an estimated million gallons of oil saturated the parish post-Katrina from 44 spills. The worst was Murphy Oil’s Meraux refinery, a 100,000 barrel a day facility. Katrina lifted and dislodged a 250,000 gallon above-ground tank, sending an oily, muddy slick through the parish.

Getting the picture?

Here is a plausible scenario for southern Louisiana, circa middle of the next decade:

2015: Gulf waves that once ended on barrier island beaches far from the city could be crashing on levees behind suburban lawns. Outlying communities such as Lafitte, Golden Meadow, Cocodrie, Montegut, Leeville, Grand Isle that still exist will be evacuated. Port Fouron, today's bayou boom town, sees approximately 20% of domestic fuel pass through on it's way from deep-water gulf wells (you guys still want to drill, right). A direct hit by one of Katrina's nasty younger sisters is a disaster waiting to happen.

As hurricane stregth continues to increase due to higher water temperatures, the storms will smack the Big Easy again and again. Those levees built to withstand a few hours of storm surge will be standing in water 24 hours a day, with results we can predict from examining the recent past.

The infrastructure serving a vital portion of the nation's domestic energy production will be exposed to the encroaching Gulf and ever increasing hurricane forces. You think gas is high now? Twenty-seven percent of America's oil and 30 percent of its gas travels through the state's coast, serving half of the nation's refinery capacity, an infrastructure that few other states would welcome. Is this something the Arabs jihadists are doing to us? Or have we met the enemy and it is us.

As a side note consider that Ports along the Mississippi River, including New Orleans and the Port of South Louisiana in LaPlace, handle 56 percent of the nation's grain shipments.

Let the good times roll, mon ami!

While the pundits and politicians in Louisiana argue and the oil money flows, the devastation of the coast is gaining speed. The arrival of a tipping point in the coast's demise has long been predicted. We are always surprised when it really comes.

Louisiana coastline restoration resources.

That sho' am good eatin' mama. Try some of Katrina's toxic stew brewed right heyah in Cancer Alley.

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