By Courtney Howell and Diane Huhn, Bayou Grace Community Services
The communities of coastal Louisiana, once exceedingly rich in resources and culture, now lie on the verge of collapse. A unique and remarkable environment that took thousands of years to create thanks to the abundant sediment and fresh water of the mighty Mississippi River has been nearly decimated in less than a century. Unfortunately, this natural disaster will also exacerbate poverty in a region already deeply afflicted by economic loss. Without action now to help address coastal erosion, an environmental problem will become a socioeconomic one.
Historically, healthy barrier islands and vast systems of marsh and wetlands helped block coastal communities from the intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms. They served as natural first and second lines of defense-slowing wind speeds and absorbing storm surge. Under healthy conditions, wetlands act as a colossal sponge, absorbing roughly one foot of storm surge for every 2.7 miles of healthy marsh. In addition to placing themselves between these protecting forces and the sea, early settlers built their communities in areas that provided a third line of defense-ridges, which served as natural levees.
But over the last 75-80 years, human intervention has so weakened these natural defenses -- especially in the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary which lays east of the Atchafalaya and west of the Mississippi Rivers -- that families are now forced to rely almost solely on manmade levees for their protection. What was once the last line of defense is now quickly becoming the only line of defense. Even worse, far too many residents, particularly low-income Louisianans, live outside of levee systems, where there is almost no protection left at all.
Unnatural land loss and erosion have not only assaulted the physical landscape in which coastal Louisianans live, it has battered the financial landscape as well. The expense of repairing or rebuilding their homes and replacing their belongings has put a huge financial strain on so many, but a storm no longer needs to make landfall to put a burden on families' pocketbooks. Due to the unnatural loss of natural protections, many communities can no longer offer shelter facilities close to home due to safety concerns. Families must often make difficult decisions about when and where to evacuate in order to ensure that they don't become trapped with no way out.
In addition, living along coastal Louisiana requires that many residents elevate their homes - in excess of ten feet in some areas -- a venture that can cost between $30,000-100,000. Insurance rarely covers the total cost after a storm, and even residents still able to afford insurance face higher deductibles with each passing storm. Home owners and flood insurance has quickly become unattainable for many residents, with policies that now cost between $5,000-8,000 a year, or more.
These costs only exacerbate financial insecurity in a region that has endured an economic downturn for some time now. Many people who traditionally have made their living along the coast as fishermen or workers in the oil field could at one time claim moderate incomes, but that is no longer the case. Even without the costly effects of hurricanes and other storms, a large percentage of people along the Louisiana coast are worse off than the previous generation. Many are just getting by, and like many Americans, are one pay check away from financial collapse. According to a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries 2007 shrimp marketing survey, the average dockside price paid for shrimp in Louisiana has dropped from approximately $1.85 per pound in 1995 to approximately $0.98 per pound in 2006.
Despite these hardships, another costly environmental threat is on the horizon. Currently, there is just enough marsh left to provide food and nursery beds for shrimp, crab and other fisheries. However, if land loss is allowed to continue, the fishing industry is headed for collapse. And it is likely that it will not happen gradually. The collapse of the ecosystem will add stress to families already under great strain and who live in the most vulnerable areas.
Coastal Louisiana is at a critical juncture and in desperate need of comprehensive restoration and protection. This problem has been well documented for decades by both state and federal agencies. However, action and full commitment to restore and protect this area has moved slowly and the money needed to holistically implement restoration and protection projects that can reverse the tide have been minimal in light of what is required.
Some positive actions have occurred since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast was approved in 2006 and is administrated through the newly created Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). Federal funds from the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) of 1990, Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP), oil and gas revenue sharing or state surplus funding that are dedicated to coastal restoration and protection are available through a competitive process under the CPRA.
Yet the CPRA is underfunded and in need of greater federal commitment. Funding available one year may be gone the next. In addition, because this is a competitive process due to resource constraints, coastal restoration and protection projects are often not well coordinated.
One of the biggest untapped opportunities would be for Congress to redirect the Army Corps of Engineers to help steward land management in the region.
The first thing Congress must do is guide the Corps to perform coastal restoration work in the name of hurricane protection. When policymakers determine the Corps' budget for Louisiana, they tend to focus on the immediate primary Corps operations, which include: navigation, flood control and restoration.
While all the pieces are there, policymakers frequently overlook the interconnectedness of these goals. The truth, however, is that island enhancement and marsh restoration will reduce storm surge and storm intensity, thereby limiting the cost of flooding and devastation.
If policymakers took a more holistic approach to restoration, they would recognize that protecting the coast would reduce the constant need for federal dollars to rebuild communities. Redirecting the Army Corps of Engineers to undertake restoration work as a means of protecting coastal Louisiana would accomplish this.
The second thing Congress can do is allow the Corps to use the sediment that they dredge annually from the Mississippi River and its tributaries to be used in a beneficial way. Currently, the Corps dredges the Mississippi to maintain river depths for navigation. The Corps is directed to dispose of the sediment they dredge in the most cost-beneficial manner. Unfortunately, this usually means not returning the material to the Louisiana estuary. Instead, the Corps dumps the sediment off of the continental shelf.
If Congress were to redirect the Corps to put sediment into the estuary, it would be an easy, effective way to build marsh and land. New technology will help ensure dredged sediment can be used to stabilize the environment and help to rebuild the environment so that it can once again protect the area.
Finally, all related agencies -- the CPRA, the Corps and other state and federal groups -- need to work with nongovernmental organizations to educate the public not only on the effects of coastal land loss and erosion, but also why rebuilding the coast will help sustain the environment and protect people from future storms. If the public at large is not apart of the overall process of restoration and protection, no governmental efforts will succeed.
If coastal Louisiana is going to survive, then the multiple lines of defense -- barrier island enhancement, marsh restoration and hurricane protection systems -- must be implemented. Allowing the natural environment to falter will only exacerbate the severe deprivation already pervasive along coastal Louisiana. Congress can take the lead in protecting this vital part of our national environment and reduce Gulf Coast poverty at the same time.
Courtney Howell is director and Diane Huhn is volunteer coordinator for Bayou Grace Community Services, which implements outreach, services, and advocacy that addresses the immediate needs of the five bayou communities of Terrebonne Parish, giving residents opportunity and renewed strength to advocate and work towards the environmental health of their community. This commentary originally appeared in a series presented by the Equity and Inclusion Campaign.
View image
The communities of coastal Louisiana, once exceedingly rich in resources and culture, now lie on the verge of collapse. A unique and remarkable environment that took thousands of years to create thanks to the abundant sediment and fresh water of the mighty Mississippi River has been nearly decimated in less than a century. Unfortunately, this natural disaster will also exacerbate poverty in a region already deeply afflicted by economic loss. Without action now to help address coastal erosion, an environmental problem will become a socioeconomic one.Historically, healthy barrier islands and vast systems of marsh and wetlands helped block coastal communities from the intensity of hurricanes and tropical storms. They served as natural first and second lines of defense-slowing wind speeds and absorbing storm surge. Under healthy conditions, wetlands act as a colossal sponge, absorbing roughly one foot of storm surge for every 2.7 miles of healthy marsh. In addition to placing themselves between these protecting forces and the sea, early settlers built their communities in areas that provided a third line of defense-ridges, which served as natural levees.
But over the last 75-80 years, human intervention has so weakened these natural defenses -- especially in the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary which lays east of the Atchafalaya and west of the Mississippi Rivers -- that families are now forced to rely almost solely on manmade levees for their protection. What was once the last line of defense is now quickly becoming the only line of defense. Even worse, far too many residents, particularly low-income Louisianans, live outside of levee systems, where there is almost no protection left at all.Unnatural land loss and erosion have not only assaulted the physical landscape in which coastal Louisianans live, it has battered the financial landscape as well. The expense of repairing or rebuilding their homes and replacing their belongings has put a huge financial strain on so many, but a storm no longer needs to make landfall to put a burden on families' pocketbooks. Due to the unnatural loss of natural protections, many communities can no longer offer shelter facilities close to home due to safety concerns. Families must often make difficult decisions about when and where to evacuate in order to ensure that they don't become trapped with no way out.
In addition, living along coastal Louisiana requires that many residents elevate their homes - in excess of ten feet in some areas -- a venture that can cost between $30,000-100,000. Insurance rarely covers the total cost after a storm, and even residents still able to afford insurance face higher deductibles with each passing storm. Home owners and flood insurance has quickly become unattainable for many residents, with policies that now cost between $5,000-8,000 a year, or more.
These costs only exacerbate financial insecurity in a region that has endured an economic downturn for some time now. Many people who traditionally have made their living along the coast as fishermen or workers in the oil field could at one time claim moderate incomes, but that is no longer the case. Even without the costly effects of hurricanes and other storms, a large percentage of people along the Louisiana coast are worse off than the previous generation. Many are just getting by, and like many Americans, are one pay check away from financial collapse. According to a Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries 2007 shrimp marketing survey, the average dockside price paid for shrimp in Louisiana has dropped from approximately $1.85 per pound in 1995 to approximately $0.98 per pound in 2006.
Despite these hardships, another costly environmental threat is on the horizon. Currently, there is just enough marsh left to provide food and nursery beds for shrimp, crab and other fisheries. However, if land loss is allowed to continue, the fishing industry is headed for collapse. And it is likely that it will not happen gradually. The collapse of the ecosystem will add stress to families already under great strain and who live in the most vulnerable areas.
Coastal Louisiana is at a critical juncture and in desperate need of comprehensive restoration and protection. This problem has been well documented for decades by both state and federal agencies. However, action and full commitment to restore and protect this area has moved slowly and the money needed to holistically implement restoration and protection projects that can reverse the tide have been minimal in light of what is required.
Some positive actions have occurred since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast was approved in 2006 and is administrated through the newly created Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA). Federal funds from the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act (CWPPRA) of 1990, Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP), oil and gas revenue sharing or state surplus funding that are dedicated to coastal restoration and protection are available through a competitive process under the CPRA.Yet the CPRA is underfunded and in need of greater federal commitment. Funding available one year may be gone the next. In addition, because this is a competitive process due to resource constraints, coastal restoration and protection projects are often not well coordinated.
One of the biggest untapped opportunities would be for Congress to redirect the Army Corps of Engineers to help steward land management in the region.
The first thing Congress must do is guide the Corps to perform coastal restoration work in the name of hurricane protection. When policymakers determine the Corps' budget for Louisiana, they tend to focus on the immediate primary Corps operations, which include: navigation, flood control and restoration.
While all the pieces are there, policymakers frequently overlook the interconnectedness of these goals. The truth, however, is that island enhancement and marsh restoration will reduce storm surge and storm intensity, thereby limiting the cost of flooding and devastation.
If policymakers took a more holistic approach to restoration, they would recognize that protecting the coast would reduce the constant need for federal dollars to rebuild communities. Redirecting the Army Corps of Engineers to undertake restoration work as a means of protecting coastal Louisiana would accomplish this.
The second thing Congress can do is allow the Corps to use the sediment that they dredge annually from the Mississippi River and its tributaries to be used in a beneficial way. Currently, the Corps dredges the Mississippi to maintain river depths for navigation. The Corps is directed to dispose of the sediment they dredge in the most cost-beneficial manner. Unfortunately, this usually means not returning the material to the Louisiana estuary. Instead, the Corps dumps the sediment off of the continental shelf.
If Congress were to redirect the Corps to put sediment into the estuary, it would be an easy, effective way to build marsh and land. New technology will help ensure dredged sediment can be used to stabilize the environment and help to rebuild the environment so that it can once again protect the area.
Finally, all related agencies -- the CPRA, the Corps and other state and federal groups -- need to work with nongovernmental organizations to educate the public not only on the effects of coastal land loss and erosion, but also why rebuilding the coast will help sustain the environment and protect people from future storms. If the public at large is not apart of the overall process of restoration and protection, no governmental efforts will succeed.
If coastal Louisiana is going to survive, then the multiple lines of defense -- barrier island enhancement, marsh restoration and hurricane protection systems -- must be implemented. Allowing the natural environment to falter will only exacerbate the severe deprivation already pervasive along coastal Louisiana. Congress can take the lead in protecting this vital part of our national environment and reduce Gulf Coast poverty at the same time.
Courtney Howell is director and Diane Huhn is volunteer coordinator for Bayou Grace Community Services, which implements outreach, services, and advocacy that addresses the immediate needs of the five bayou communities of Terrebonne Parish, giving residents opportunity and renewed strength to advocate and work towards the environmental health of their community. This commentary originally appeared in a series presented by the Equity and Inclusion Campaign.
Thank you Courtney and Diane for this critical article. All across South Louisiana coastal communties are losing the war against the Gulf of Mexico.
As we approach the fourth anniversary of Katrina-Rita and the one year anniversary of Gustav and Ike, there must be a way the words of this article can land on the desk of every US Senator and Congress man or woman in DC. That it can be read out loud by President Obama on international TV and from US House and Senate floor. Like the final horn before the ships goes down!
This article also must be read by Governor Jindal, every Louisiana lawmaker, every parish president and should be published in every newspaper across this nation.
The people of Louisiana are losing the war against the Gulf of Mexico...every 38 minutes another football field worth of land is swallowed by the silent thief....the Gulf of Mexico.
So how many hurricanes will it take to stop the studies and start the flow of dredged sediment through pipelines from all Louisiana rivers?
Why cannot there be a law that would imprison employees of the Corp or any company who does not build new land with every ounce of dredged sediment?
Currently USACE barges dredged sediment offshore where it is dumped in 4000 feet of water. This should be a federal crime. It is no different from robbing a bank...or a convenice store.
The penalty should be equal to what a robber gets for killing people in the act of committing a crime.
When folks start going to jail for environmental injustice both offshore and on land in Louisiana, Texas, Missisippi, Alabama and Florida, then billions of dollars will be saved and millions of people's lives will be saved...and coastal communties can be restored at least maybe to what they were in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew struck Florida and Louisiana.
I cannot beleive US citizens are concerned about North Korea, the Middle East, Micheal Jackson or Sarah Palin while our nation is being devoured hour by hour, wave by wave, land forever transformed to open water while the Gulf of Mexico marches straight toward Baton Rouge and Lafayette and Lake Charles.....while I-10 is slowly becoming the Great Wall Across Louisiana....that will never be a CAT 5 levee like George W. Bush promised in 2005.
Until the people of Louisiana come together and speak with one mission and one message as we were instructed to so by Christopher Hallowell and Mike Tidwell way back in 2002, we will never win the trust and sympathy of other states.
Seven years and four hurricanes later...Katrina-Rita-Gustav-Ike and it is beginning to look like Paradise Faded just may already be Paradise lost!
Our nation's economic and national security problems are on the verge of losing our country not to another nation but to the Gulf of Mexico. She is thirsty for sweet Louisiana soil and she is swallowing our people and our land almost faster than the Titanic sank.
In Texas and Oklahoma, when word reached my cousin's during my Dad's sister's funeral that citizens of Louisiana and America's Wetland were celebrating AW 's Storm Warning LAST STAND with fog horns and Jazz music and good food...one of my cousin's said "We don't have to worry about South Louisiana until they start singing the hymns that played while the Titanic was going down."
Since his son just graduated from law school in New Orleans and now works at a law firm uptown, I can tell you that we may be like the Appolla Space Mission that got in trouble...
the entire world was listening when that astrounaut said "Houston, we have a problem."
But we have not been and will never be Houston.
And the only thing the entire world hears from the Big Easy is Jazz Music, good food, Mardi Gras, federal levees that breeched and katrina fraud.
We do not have the clout or the media market of Houston....and the NASA program we DID have is being phased out!
We need to send out an SOS not just to the people of the United States but the entire world. This is an international crisis of almost unimaginable consequences.
Once the fisheries collaspe as C.C. Lockwood pointed out they would do in April of 2005....before Katrina-Rita...the end for our state and our country will be like falling dominos....and the death knell will be felt in China, India, Europe and South America, Africa and even in the Soviet Union.
The butterfy wings have already sent out the silent winds that will bring the terrifying end to the United States of America that our founders sacrficed fortune and blood to create and our fathers, brothers and sisters have been dying for ever since.
The Pentegon needs to know it will take every branch of service and every uniformed person we have to save our nation from the Gulf of Mexico.
She is a bigger threat than Al-Queda!
Right now the world has a sea of oil floating on tankers because the price is so low....but once The Port of Baton Rouge and New Orleans and Port Fourchon along with Lake Charles are closed...and eventually too much traffic in Port of Houston brings all vehicle traffic to a complete stop. Then and only then will reporters focus on the lower Mississippi Delta.
Then when people start paying ten dollars at the pump...maybe then they will read up on South Louisiana, the most rapidly vanishing delta on earth.
While crops are rotting in the Midwest, maybe someone somewhere will figure out how to get President Obama and Governor Jindal not only on the same page...but on the very same plane flying across Louisiana. at 2500 feet.
A day flight...and a night flight.
May God hear our prayers and may our nation come to our rescue before the crisis in Louisiana makes the Wall Street crisis look like kindergarten bad behavior.
Ted Flagout wrote the script for the FX movie that played in June 2005 Storm Warnings. Maybe this film needs to be shown again!
July 12, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply
Anyone interested in coastal restoration efforts should get involved with America's WETLAND: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana. The foundation works to raise public awareness of the impact Louisiana’s wetland loss has on the state, nation and world and to gain support for efforts to conserve and save coastal Louisiana. They need our support!
Check out their Web site:
http://www.americaswetland.com
Join their Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2218884569#/group.php?gid=10751373114
Watch fascinating videos on their YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/marmillionco
July 13, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply