That's how the authors of the NOLA series on Louisiana's vanishing coast describe what's left of the land and marsh that make up our southern parishes.
I've been searching for reliable sources to read so I can learn more about this subject and this NOLA series, partnered with the New York Times, is my starting point. In a series of articles the authors introduce us to various communities and people in south Louisiana who are watching not only their land but also their homes and their culture and way of life disappear.
It's heartbreaking and from this early stage of my reading it doesn't appear there are any clear answers. It doesn't appear that any amount of money thrown at this problem will be able to solve it.
The series of articles point fingers at a number of culprits: rising sea levels due to climate change, a series of destructive storms, oil companies who built and widened canals but never repaired them when they left, the construction of levees to control the Mississippi, and even plagues of insects and rodents who destroy vegetation.
This article about the community of Jean Lafitte, located just south of New Orleans, chronicles the efforts of the mayor, Timmy Kerner, who has adopted the strategy of improving his community to the point that it would be more economically feasible to save it from erosion than to let it go:
His strategy was to secure so much public investment for Jean Lafitte that it would eventually become too valuable to abandon. In a decade, he had built a 1,300-seat auditorium, a library, a wetlands museum, a civic center and a baseball park. Jean Lafitte did not have a stoplight, but it had a senior center, a medical clinic, an art gallery, a boxing club, a nature trail and a visitor center where animatronic puppets acted out the story of its privateer namesake.
Some of the facilities had been used sparingly, and many at the grand opening questioned whether the seafood pavilion would be much different. To the mayor that was largely beside the point. What mattered was that the structure existed, that its poured concrete and steel beams made Lafitte that much more permanent. "Do we lose that investment, or do we protect it?" Kerner asked...
The authors, Kevin Sack and John Schwartz, point out that a fourth of our wetlands are already gone and in fifty years 2,000 square miles could also go. In human terms:
The Gulf Restoration Network, a nonprofit conservation group, calculates that there are 358,000 people and 116,000 houses in Louisiana census tracts that would be swamped in the surge of a catastrophic hurricane by 2062. The Geological Survey predicts that in 200 years the state's wetlands could be gone altogether.
As Sack and Schwartz report it, the community of Jean Lafitte and everything else south of that New Orleans levee has basically been abandoned to the elements with the Corps of Engineers advocating relocation of the people. But that's not to say that nobody is trying to solve the problem. There are lots of committees, levee boards, ecologists, politicians, environmentalists, and other experts working to find and agree on solutions. And then there is the ever present problem of funding.
There are so many factors at play in this issue. This NOLA series is a great place to start learning about it, which is what I'm trying to do.
After you read about the community of Jean Lafitte, be sure you read this article about the Leeville community on Bayou Lafourche and the cemeteries that are washing out to sea. It's heartbreaking.
While there are plenty of problems in Louisiana and we've long been known for our notorious politicians and various aspects of corruption, (and tell me where, please, will you NOT find that?) this is one issue on which we should all be united. Whether you believe in global warming or climate change or not, whether you believe this land loss is due to greedy oil companies and their negligence, or whether you believe it's just a natural course of events, what we all need to remember is that this is our state: our culture, our way of life.
There are few places more beautiful in my mind than south Louisiana. The swamps, the bayous, the people and their way of life, is unlike anywhere else. How can we let this go?
There has got to be a way to restore and preserve our coastline and our state.
If you have a good source or recommendation for further reading on this, please share with me in the comments!
Further Reading:
Insects Feast on Louisiana's Coast (NOLA: Feb. 2018)
Buried at Sea: As cemeteries on Louisiana coast wash away, so does history (NOLA: March 2018)
Our Drowning Coast (NOLA: Feb. 2018)
Why the Master Plan will not Protect Louisiana (LSU Law Center: Feb. 2017)
