Coastal clock nears midnight
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The picture on the front page of today's paper shows how little separates New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico, and the image ought to be seared into the minds of those who care about coastal Louisiana's future.
We are not just close to danger in terms of miles. We are also close -- perilously close -- to the point of no return in dealing with the state's coastal erosion crisis. A three-day series that begins in The Times-Picayune today spells out how little time is left to reverse land loss and the devastating consequences if we do not.
Scientists interviewed for the stories say that we have 10 years or less to create more wetlands than we are losing. If that doesn't happen, the cost of repair and the time needed to accomplish it will be overwhelming.
The urgency of their warnings stands in contrast to the slow pace and insufficient scope of what's been done so far to restore the coast and even what is on the drawing board. For every square mile that the state has created since serious restoration efforts began in 1989, another five have been lost.
Cypress swamp, marshes, ridges and barrier islands reduce storm surge, and the loss of those protective buffers have made our coastline far more vulnerable.
Louisianians need to understand this issue so that we can speak up -- loudly -- about the need to save our homes and communities and the assets that the entire nation relies on, from Gulf fisheries to energy networks. It's a message the rest of the country also needs to appreciate. Reading the stories and graphics that make up "Last Chance" is a good way to begin.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/editori...020.xml&coll=1
LAST CHANCE: The fight to save a disappearing coast
We have 10 years or less the act before the loss of Louisiana's wetlands is irreversible
Sunday, March 04, 2007
By Bob Marshall
The satellite map in Kerry St. Pe's office shows the great sweep of marshes protecting New Orleans from the Gulf in bright red, a warning they will vanish by the year 2040, putting the sea at the city's doorstep.
Coastal scientists produced the map three years ago.
They now know they got it wrong. "People think we still have 20, 30, 40 years left to get this done. They're not even close," said St. Pe, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, which seeks to save one of the coast's most threatened and strategically vital zones. "Ten years is how much time we have left -- if that."
That new time frame for when the Gulf could reach New Orleans' suburbs sharply reduces projections that have stood for more than three decades. Unless the state rapidly reverses the land loss, coastal scientists say, by the middle of the next decade the cost of repair likely will be too daunting for Congress to accept -- and take far too long to implement under the current approval process.
Interviews with the leading coastal scientists, as well as state and federal officials, brought no disagreement with that stark new prognosis. And while the predictions stand at odds with nearly a decade of official optimism, scientists said the death and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina prompted them to voice private concerns that have been growing in recent years. "I think that shocked us as much as any other group," said Robert Twilley, director of Louisiana State University's Gulf restoration initiative who has worked on the issue for years. "I think our concern now is that we may have contributed to false optimism."
Unless, within 10 years, the state begins creating more wetlands than it is losing -- a task that will require billions of dollars in complex and politically sensitive projects -- scientists said a series of catastrophes could begin to unfold over the next decade.
In 10 years, at current land-loss rates:
-- Gulf waves that once ended on barrier island beaches far from the city could be crashing on levees behind suburban lawns.
-- The state will be forced to begin abandoning outlying communities such as Lafitte, Golden Meadow, Cocodrie, Montegut, Leeville, Grand Isle and Port Fourchon.
-- The infrastructure serving a vital portion of the nation's domestic energy production will be exposed to the encroaching Gulf.
-- Many levees built to withstand a few hours of storm surge will be standing in water 24 hours a day -- and facing the monster surges that come with tropical storms.
-- Hurricanes approaching from the south will treat the city like beachfront property, crushing it with forces like those experienced by the Mississippi Gulf Coast during Katrina.
The entire nation would reel from the losses. The state's coastal wetlands, the largest in the continental United States, nourish huge industries that serve all Americans, not just residents of southeastern Louisiana.
Twenty-seven percent of America's oil and 30 percent of its gas travels through the state's coast, serving half of the nation's refinery capacity, an infrastructure that few other states would welcome and that would take years to relocate. Ports along the Mississippi River, including the giant Port of New Orleans and the Port of South Louisiana in LaPlace, handle 56 percent of the nation's grain shipments. And the estuaries now rapidly turning to open water produce half of the nation's wild shrimp crop and about a third of its oysters and blue claw crabs. Studies show destruction of the wetlands protecting the infrastructure serving those industries would put $103 billion in assets at risk.
Despite such dire threats, the most disturbing concern may be this: Coastal restoration efforts have been under way for two decades, but not a single project capable of reversing the trend currently awaits approval.
The modest restoration efforts already under way have no chance of making a serious impact, experts say. "It's like putting makeup on a corpse," said Mark Schexnayder, a regional coastal adviser with LSU's Sea Grant College Program who has spent 20 years involved in coastal restoration.
Decades after scientists alerted the nation to the problem, the Gulf not only continues to eat into the coast, its appetite remains insatiable: For every square mile the state has created since 1989, when serious restoration efforts started, the Gulf has devoured 5 more miles. Looking at just the wetlands surrounding New Orleans, the prognosis grows even more ominous, because these are the areas with the highest rates of loss on the coast.
Congress provided a note of hope last year, voting the state a permanent 37.5 percent slice of offshore oil revenues for coastal restoration work. But full financing -- some $650 million annually -- won't kick in until 2017. During the critical next decade, the state will be receiving only about $20 million a year, a pittance in the face of a problem that will require tens of billions of dollars to solve. Although the state could borrow against future revenues, scores of logistical and political hurdles remain.
St. Pe and others say 10 years will be too late for many coastal communities; they'll have to be moved within the next decade if serious land-building hasn't already started. "If we aren't building land I can walk on inside of 10 years, we'll be moving communities," St. Pe said. "It's already the witching hour for a lot of these places, and a lot of other places are next."
The demise will not come only as a steady south-to-north movement of shorelines melting away from the pounding of waves. Subsidence and saltwater intrusion will also eat away marshes from the inside. Like a digital image rapidly losing pixels, small holes appear in the marsh and then grow larger as almost every high tide and strong wind carries away more plants and soil. Soon the holes join to form large lagoons, which, in turn, merge with nearby lakes and bays.
That reality becomes disturbingly clear from the window of an airplane. Vast sections of the state's majestic marshes, once spread across the sportsman's paradise like a thin veil of green lace, have been swallowed by the sea. The water now pushes against the city's boundaries and spreads unbroken to the southern horizon.