new Orleans – The coast of Louisiana is in danger as a quarter of the wetlands of the state, a field about the size of the delaware, has disappeared in the last 100 years, American geological survey,
Wetlands are an important buffer that molds Louisiana communities Monster storm,
Whereas Large -scale flood walls And man-made marshes are assistants, with coastal scientists Alisha Renfro and the Non-Group Group with the Expedition Director Simone Mallta restored the Mississippi River Delta, saying that those projects alone are not sufficient to rebuild and rebuild the estimated land loss of the future alone.
“You can reduce the storm up to a leg with a mile of coastal wetlands,” Renfro told CBS News.
Malz said, “A difficult lesson we have learned after Katrina: We have to think long -term. We also have to think big.”
It’s 20 years Hurdle Exposed the limit of coastal erosion of the state. It was the largest residential disaster in American history, with Louisiana Independent Research Non -Profit the Data Center, killed over 1,300 people and displaced a million others on the Gulf coast.
Since Katrina, Satellite picture NASA Earth Observatory suggests that according to the USGS, Louisiana coastline has lost even more marshy land – an estimated 200,000 acres.
According to restoration of the Mississippi River Delta, there is a loss of land due to many factors including increase in sea level, shipping channels, legs, natural sub -species, aggressive species and severe storms.
Without the protection of the Wetlands, Mallows and Renfro say that the future will be unstable for coastal Louisiana communities.
“I think this is a future that we don’t want to think about,” Malz said about the effect on the region that if the humid land disappears.
“This is the disadvantage of culture,” said Rainfro. “This is the loss of the place and it is the loss of the house for a lot of people.”
Last month, Louisiana officials $ 3 billion project canceled -Mid-barsia is known as sedimentary turns-demanding reconstruction of the swamp.
Renfro and Malloz spent years in planning a diversion project with other state and federal leaders and scientists. The project was unique, as instead of a man-made marsh manufactured by a draped sediment, it naturally changed the sediment flowing under the Mississippi River for the rebuilding of the wetlands, the way the Mississippi River Delta was built centuries ago.
Renfro and Malloz saw it as the best solution to save Louisiana. They argue that other projects will not be almost effective, nor will they rebuild more land.
“If you do not change the forces that took away from you in the first place … If you don’t have a systemic change, you are going to lose it too,” Malz said. “And because the mid-bartaria was represented. It represents the systemic change that returned how we were made that gave us to that long-term future. If you want to talk about dollars and st, you are talking about investing more than 50 years instead of investing more than 10 years or more than 20 years. But it is really and in fact.
According to the restoration of the Mississippi River Delta, the project would have inspired the Mississippi sediment for reconstruction of 17,000 acres of land over the next 30 years to reconstruct 17,000 acres of land in the next 30 years.
“We are very few on money,” Mallaz said. “We are less on natural resources. And we are less on time.”
Even though, Louisiana’s coastal protection and restoration authority ended the project in this summer, under the direction of Republican Louisiana village Jeff Landry, even though $ 600 million had already been spent about $ 600 million.
The project faced Stark opposition to several community members in a small parish Parish south of New Orleans.
The third generation oostarman, local businessman, and Plackwimines Parish Councilman Mich Zurisich filed a lawsuit to stop the project. He told CBS News that he did so “Because I know what it would have done for our fishing industry, our commercial fishing industry. And when you look at this port, it would just erase us completely.”
Documents of the project published by the US Army Corps of Engineers suggest that it first has some negative impact on fisheries near the project site. But Renfro says that, under the road, fisheries must have become stronger.
Government records also revealed that the project would have increased floods and storms in some houses south of the project site. The project would have compensated the effects, but Zurisich believes that there are better solutions that will not sacrifice their community for the rest of the state.
“I tell all of them,” it is not my fault that Y’All ruined the money, “Juris said about the state officials. “It’s your fault, because you pushed it down our throat, knowing that we did not want it.” ,
Zurisich says that small, man -made marshes may be cheaper and will not sacrifice its fishing community for the rest of the state. But Renfro argues that there is only a temporary fix and the fishing industry will eventually pay a steep value for the continuous loss of the wetlands.
“They (fishing industry) depend on the coastal humid land that are disappearing,” said Rainfro. “And once those wetlands leave, fisheries falls collapse. There is no option to do nothing.”
