• It’s Christmas eve, and holidays mean time with...

It’s Christmas eve, and holidays mean time with family. This leads to a lot of questions about what I’ve been doing in Louisiana since moving to Houma 4 and a half months ago. Sometimes I answer intelligently.

I have to take myself back to the day I got a completely different view of the wetlands of Terrebonne parish, thanks to an educational grant from the Louisiana University Marine Consortium, or LUMCON.

We were flying to observe coastal erosion: where marshland, which was once between the populated inland regions and the salty gulf waters, has slowly receded. Every year, a land area greater than the size of Manhattan disappears into the water. Read more. Read even more.

This is the result of a variety of factors, both manmade and natural. Certainly, man’s role has accelerated the process, and man is central to fixing the problem.

The fallen trees are a sign of saltwater intrusion, what happens when the salinity of the water increases after land sinks into the ground.

What this means for coastal Louisiana is yet to be fully understood, as an ecological disaster of this proportion is unprecedented. With increased salinity in the inland waters, the biodiversity that has created such rich fisheries for the people of Louisiana will ebb away, and the thousands who live down the bayou will be forced to relocate as their homes sink into the water.

This is the kind of problem that is almost mind boggling in scale, but because it happens slowly, with centimeters lost gradually over time, it is hard to feel an immediate effect. Even though the water line is observable where cows once grazed, their lacks the certainty that emirates from other equally dire environmental problems like species extinction, rainforest destruction or oil spills.

My perspective on environmental issues is that there are no other problems more important. Why bother reporting on the sports games, the parties, the activities of the rich and famous when the ground beneath your feet, the “good earth” that gives life to everything in Louisiana is literally disappearing. Merry Christmas.