Louisiana Land Loss
Louisiana Land Loss
I sat down with a man tonight. He has lived in Southeastern Louisiana his entire life. At 65 years of age, he lived in a Louisiana before the highway era. This was a time between the states golden age as a commercial powerhouse and its new emergence as the unspoken capital of southern hospitality. At one point, New Orleans was the 4th most productive port of commerce in the world. Because of poor planning and ill-advised infrastructuring of its waterways, especially regarding the great Mississippi River, Louisiana now finds itself in a fragile position of coastal reclamation. Long story short, the coast is disappearing at an alarming rate. Our state holds 40% of the nations wetlands and experiences 90% of all coastal wetland loss in the lower 48. Louisiana loses upwards of 35 square miles of coastal wetland annually, a chunk of land larger than Manhattan. Tangent aside, this man, a born and bred Louisiana resident can recall a time when him and his father would take fishing trips to islands off the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi that no longer exist. These areas are now under several feet of water or have been dissected by man made canals used to bring oil rigs to the gulf coast. It’s a harsh reality, but at the current rate, New Orleans could be a beach destination in the next couple hundred years. Maps are lying to you. Get educated and involved. Read more in this link!
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