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"Decision-makers" get look at coast erosion
October 20, 2004
The Advocate (Baton Rouge)
Advocate staff and news services
NEW ORLEANS - Statistics on coastal erosion are one thing but actually seeing what they mean helps drive the point home, according to one congressional staffer who got a first-hand look on Friday, along with Gov. Kathleen Blanco.
"The statistics on erosion are kind of scary. I don't think you can understand it until you see it for yourself," Kellie Donnelly, counsel for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said.
Blanco was host to congressional staffers and national conservation and government organizations on her first "host flyover" of the tattered Louisiana coast.
"These people are decision makers," Blanco said before the tour participants boarded National Guard Black Hawk helicopters.
She said she wanted the entourage to get a first-hand experience in how Louisiana's coast "looks like a crossword puzzle" of eroded lands.
"We can't do this alone in Louisiana," the governor said. "We have to be patient, it's something we have to work at every day."
The group included staffers from U.S. Senate and House panels critical to passing legislation that would aid the effort to save coastal Louisiana. Representatives of the National Association of Counties, the National Governors Association, Ducks Unlimited and the National Wildlife Federation also were present.
The itinerary included a stop in Port Fourchon, an oil and natural gas hub threatened by land loss, followed by Blanco's speech at a meeting of the Parishes Against Coastal Erosion in Lafayette.
South Louisiana has lost about 1,900 square miles of coastline since the 1930s when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers put the finishing touches on corralling the Mississippi River with levees.
When the river was straightjacketed, sediment and freshwater no longer reached Louisiana's wetlands which in turn contracted, sank and eroded away.
Aggravating that were the 8,000 miles of canals dug into the marsh and swamp by oil and natural gas prospectors and shippers.
Also, U.S. Geological Survey scientists have recently blamed the extraction of oil and gas from beneath south Louisiana's surface for subsidence. Geologists believe the surface sinks as air pressure under the surface diminishes when fluids are pumped out of the ground.
Oil and gas activity also activates geologic faults that trigger chunks of earth to slump.
Keeping the message of Louisiana's coastal plight alive has become more critical because it looks like Congress this year will not pass legislation to approve new money to fight coastal erosion, said Sidney Coffee, executive assistant of the governor's Office of Coastal Activities.
Members of the Louisiana congressional delegation have for years tried to get more money to fight the erosion from federal offshore oil royalties. Donnelly said it has been difficult for Louisiana to obtain that funding because that is a pot of money many people want to tap into for a variety of projects each year. That translates into strong opposition in the Senate.
While efforts have petered out in Washington, D.C., to get funding for Louisiana's coast, Blanco's trip comes on the heels of an important development in Louisiana.
On Tuesday, the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned a $1.3 billion judgment awarded to oystermen in Breton Sound who sued the state, alleging that the Caernarvon freshwater diversion - a major coast- saving project - destroyed their oyster beds.
With that ruling in hand, the state hopes to be able to push forward with diversions without the fear of running into more lawsuits.
"It certainly gives the state a better vantage point to deal with this," Coffee said.
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