wetlands loss and the environment in new orleans… and global climate destabilization
100 Years of Land Loss in Louisiana (large pdf file)
oh, the environment in new orleans…i started this post while i was in new orleans, but wasn’t able to finish uploading these links until now… so now i’ve tried to update it again with some more recent info and analysis on coastal land loss from USGS. please take a look at some of these links – if you have a fast enough connection, the usgs maps and charts are interesting and scary and depict impacts of wetlands trends that are not soon forgotten.
many groups have been testing and cleaning and remediating in the year+ since katrina struck. but the environmental disaster that followed katrina can’t really be understood without the context of what the environment was like here in new orleans and in lousiana before the storm hit. new orleans and coastal louisiana were home to superfund landfills, degraded wetlands, refineries, and many other sites with a history of releases… katrina’s unusual force added additional stress to a system that should have protected the people and ecology of new orleans, but there were many sites that handled, stored, or released hazardous materials in existence before katrina hit and whose flooding added to the city’s vulnerability and lasting toxic after-effects from the storm. (click on the above links to do your own searches on chemicals or facilities, or go to Lousiana Environmental Action Network’s (LEAN) TRI data and maps for Louisiana chemical corridor: <LEANwebmaps>)
the city’s vulnerability was also increased by ongoing loss of wetlands along the louisiana coast. these wetlands should act as a buffer between gulf storms and inland populations, but as wetlands are lost to dams, levees, navigation projects and channels, rising seas, changing land use, storms, etc., the buffer is lost and the result is stronger storm surges and effects further inland. in addition, most scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change agree that global warming is and will continue to lead to an increase in severity of tropical storms (this is because hurricanes gather strength from warmer ocean surface waters). scientists have already published studies showing that hurricanes are becoming stronger everywhere that they occur <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature03906.html>.
in 2003, usgs reported that coastal louisiana was losing land at an alarming rate, averaging 34 square miles per year between 1956 and 2000, and that the “primary cause of this land loss appeared to be dams, levees and navigation projects along the main stream and tributaries of the mississippi river that started in 1928 and were completed in 1963, coinciding with the first observations of major coastal land loss in louisiana”.
the usgs has compiled some amazing and scary reports on land loss in coastal louisiana — please note that some of these reports were printed several years ago and include both assessments of landloss from 1932-2000 and predictions for future land loss in louisiana (2000-2050)….
usgs released a report in october 2006 where they note that (1) their november 2005 assessments of land loss due to katrina and rita were underestimated and that in fact 217 square miles of louisiana’s coastal lands were transformed to water after hurricanes katrina and rita, and (2) actual observed land loss from katrina and rita has already accounted for (42%) of the louisiana coastal land loss they had previously predicted to take place from 2000-2050:
Land transformed to water along the coast and on barrier islands further reduces Louisiana’s natural protection from future storms. Louisiana had already lost 1,900 square miles of coastal lands, primarily marshes, from 1932 to 2000. The 217 square miles of potential land loss from the 2005 hurricanes represent 42 percent of what scientists had predicted, before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, would take place over a 50-year period from 2000 to 2050, even though they had factored storms into their model.
land loss along louisiana coast:
http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/special/landloss.htm
For some perspective on what all this water and toxic sludge means to real people, one additional source of information and data on New Orleans population, maps of hurricane floodwater, etc. can be found here: http://gnocdc.org/
on leaving new orleans
leaving new orleans was hard… there’s still so much to do, and it was so hard to say goodbye to people i’ve grown close to during my brief few months in new orleans. i’m in chicago now, putting together next steps. i haven’t written to many of you in a long time — it got so hectic in new orleans it was hard to keep up with communications. i’m still surprised at the questions and reactions i get from people that i talk with about new orleans — people asking, “is it worth rebuilding?” or “is there still that much left to do?!”. i’ve included a few pictures in this post… these are pictures from my last weeks in new orleans – pictures of new orleans nine and ten months after the storm. in the end i needed to leave to try to catch up again with the life i’m just starting out in chicago. it is strange being in another city – one with infrastructure that functions, to a degree – after being so consumed by the damage and debris and unmet needs and military presence of new orleans. it does help to put some context into the inquiries i had been getting (is there still really all that much to do there?). it’s hard to imagine how devastated parts of the city are when you aren’t there. it’s difficult for me even after spending several months living in the disaster zone… i came back to chicago and at first had the overwhelming sense of being somewhere where things worked. traffic lights, phones, electricity…. it starts to seem so normal that it seems just absolutely ridiculous that there could be whole communities in the urban united states that don’t have those things and people/media have moved on to other things.
anyway, i’m getting distracted. i did want to share in this post a few updates on the scene in new orleans since i last wrote, as well as a few pictures to help illustrate. i know, everyone has seen the new orleans pictures. i too had seen a lot of pictures of the flood aftermath – the visual story was definitely part of what compelled me to quit my job and go to new orleans to witness and to contribute in some way. i also knew that the pictures and stories that i was seeing and hearing from most media outlets were failing to provide me with the whole story and i wanted to be able to experience part of the story personally so that i could in turn try to share that with others in my network of friends and family. i’d like to write more, but honestly i’m exhausted. here are some starter pictures in the meantime, maybe of things that you haven’t seen (people resisting the government and standing up for environmental justice and the human right to shelter)… i’ll try to add text slowly in future posts, as well as additional pictures of the state of gutting and rebuilding in the 9th ward.
National Guard Reoccupies 9th Ward – vehicles line up in front of a church
St. Bernard – one of several public housing sites slated for demolition by HANO and HUD
Pictures taken July 4, 2006, on a day of protest, rally, and unity for survivors and former residents.
(lots of pics and information available: see also http://survivorsvillage.com/ and http://justiceforneworleans.org/)
People Gather at City Hall to Protest the Fast-Tracked Opening of the Chef Menteur landfill
The landfill site raises environmental justice issues because the landfill will take debris from all areas of New Orleans but is located near the primarily Vietnamese Village de l’Est community, as well as other minority communities in eastern New Orleans. (here’s an article on the event at city hall: http://www.neworleanseast.com/news/article/landfill/landfill1.htm)
