Some people predict that in one hundred years, the Plaquemines and Terrebonne Parishes, now the ruined sites of the BP oil spill in the Gulf, will disappear into the sea. In fact, over the past 50 years half of Placquemines Parish has disappeared due to oil and gas pipelines, according to Oliver Houck, professor of environmental law at Tulane University.
Turning Up "the Heat"
The 20th century brought more federalized river control and levee construction as New Orleans became a modern city with a downtown, streetcar networks, electricity, skyscrapers, a municipal water treatment plant and sewage system as well as a world-class drainage system.
In 1950 the U.S. Congress ordered the Corps to maintain the "latitude flow" of the river at 30 percent in perpetuity. While this order makes sense to promote stability of cities and industries that lie between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, known as the "German coast" or the "American Ruhr," the Mississippi River had other ideas, namely, to change course.
To solve this problem, the Corps built the Old River Control Structure in the 1940s where its floodgates could be opened and closed as needed. A film that showcased this project reveals the Corps' confident "macho" approach toward its mission to save the economy from Nature, its declared enemy:
"This nation has a large and powerful adversary. Our opponent could cause the United States to lose nearly all her seaborne commerce, to lose her standing as first among trading nations".We are fighting Mother Nature".It's a battle we have to fight day by day, year by year; the health of our economy depends on victory."
Between 1950 and 1973 the "intensification of land use in the lower Mississippi" occurred through suburbanization, agriculture and the gas and oil industry, which helped make New Orleans a lot harder to protect against storms and the floods. In New Orleans, which is as much as 15 feet below sea level, two per cent is terra firma, 18 percent wetland and 80 percent water, according to McPhee.
As the city grew larger, it began to sink and by 2000 it was six to eight feet below sea level thus creating "the bowl" that Hurricane Katrina so catastrophically filled. The natural flooding and drainage of the Mississippi River had been ignored in favor of creating a canal and pumping system. And although Hurricane Betsy sounded the alarm in 1965 that this system literally rested on shaky ground, the water control projects continued.
For example, in 1960, the metropolitan area occupied 100 square miles with 630,000 residents. In 2005, it occupied 180 square miles with a population of 480,000. It didn't help that one-story suburban ranch houses built on concrete slabs in the most vulnerable areas had replaced the traditional shotgun houses that were raised off the ground. Today, less than 350,000 people live in the city after 90 percent of them evacuated because of Katrina.
Meanwhile, over the past 60 years, the oil and gas companies have built 8,000 miles of canals in the wetlands. These canals were dredged up to six or seven feet deep and 15- to 25-foot wide to accommodate the transportation of drilling rigs. However, a typical canal would double its width in five years through wetlands erosion.
The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) is an example of a shipping canal that eroded three times its original width and killed off 39,000 acres of cypress forest and wetlands between New Orleans and the Gulf. Over the years it allowed saltwater intrusion and tidal action to seep into freshwater ecosystems and turn the marsh into open muddy water. MRGO (pronounced Mr. Go) probably acted as a funnel for Katrina's storm surge and helped overwhelm the levees. It was built in the 1950s as a response to its rival for trade, the St. Lawrence Seaway, which permits ocean-going vessels to travel between the Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes. After Katrina, MRGO, which was little-used by that time, was filled in.
"The rise of the petroleum industry and the building of new canals had all sorts of ecological impacts, including increased saltwater intrusion and continuing erosion of the wetlands," said Campanella.
The delta region is comprised of wetlands that supports a vast diversity of wildlife and that protects people from storm surges. The wetlands have been eroding at the rate of about 25 square miles annually or about one football field every day. Katrina's storm surge broke levees in 53 places and caused the flooding of New Orleans and many people are concerned about the dangers ahead for the region.
"The coast is sinking out of sight," Houck. "We've reversed Mother Nature."
"By 2050, the city will be closer to and more exposed to the Gulf of Mexico," noted the authors of Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana, a 1998 coastal restoration plan put together by the State of Louisiana and the federal government.
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