Oil Spills and Hurricanes: What Will it Take to Get Louisiana Coastal Restoration?

Coastal restoration has been an issue in Louisiana for quite some time, even predating Hurricane Katrina. How many oil spills and hurricanes will it take to get something done? Republicans and Democrats alike have had agreement in the importance of the issue along the Cajun coastline. As well as politicians, the Coastal Conservation Association and Ducks Unlimited have advocated coastal restoration long before the disasters of the last few years.

The dams along the Mississippi river that protect the heartland of America have doomed the Delta. The silt that naturally made it's way to the outlet in the gulf replenished the marshes and barrier islands. The natural replenishment has been stopped for so long is proving to be fatal for Louisiana. Louisiana is paying a dear price for flood control that much of the United States enjoys. Louisianans flood so others in the country do not have to.

I became aware of this phenomenon as a fisherman and hunter a couple hundred miles away in Texas twenty years ago. This is happening in Texas as well as beach is lost although not as critically as Louisiana. In the late 1980's on a trip looking for surfing spots we traveled away from the beaches of Galveston moving toward Louisiana. Though we didn't find any surf spots we did find the surf coming across the state highway that we had to drive around. That stretch of highway is long gone now.

Over the past five years I have gone fishing in the Louisiana marsh and enjoyed the beauty and incredible fishing. Even when fishing with groups that don't know each other and it different areas a common observation comes up. It seems like every time I go out as I learn the areas the others on the boat always refer to what used to be there. Entire islands or stretches are land are gone and those who tell me are in their thirties and forties, not seventies or eighties.

Though I grew up and fished the Texas coast I know this to be true because of one area I have studied since the 1990s. At that time I saw the pictures and heard the unbelievable stories of the Chandeleur Islands. People are now familiar with them because of the oil spill, but I knew of them because fishing areas like that can't be kept secret. When I started studying charts of the Chandeleurs it was a long island chain stretching from Venice to Biloxi. Each passing hurricane has whittled the island chain down to almost nothing.

My father-in-law has lived in Bayou Dularge, Louisiana his whole life and would not live anywhere else. This is a area that was free of floods for years, even with hurricanes. In less than four years he has had to rebuild his home twice due to flooding. Though his home had a direct hit from Hurricane Gustav in 2008 and Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans an hour away these were not the storms that flooded the home. What flooded the area was Hurricane Rita which hit the Texas-Louisiana border and Hurricane Ike that hit Galveston. Though Katrina and Gustav were closer the hurricanes that were a couple hundred miles away sent the storm surge were what devastated the area. This was confirmed to me when working for the FEMA trailer program in Terrebonne Parish after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. On government paperwork with the program Katrina damage was designated with an 03 code and Rita damage had an 07 code. In Terrebonne Parish 03 codes were rare and usually represented wind damage while 07 codes were more common and usually meant flood damage.

Every hurricane has taken more of the coast and the damage becomes progressively worse. The BP oil spill is now in the marshes and as the grasses that hold them together die the coast will wash away faster. A hurricane hitting almost anywhere on the Western Gulf this year will be catastrophic. Much of this oil spill could have been held further out if there were still barrier islands to do it. It is time that something more than talking about it happen. How many times must the country watch the plight of Louisiana for action be taken. We are now watching the second consecutive United States President have to deal with these issues, when will they learn that dealing with it would save a lot of trouble and maybe an administration?