The limbs of an oak tree stretch behind a statue of Jesus monday at the Pointe-aux-Chenes Marina. “I put the statue there about 8 years ago,” said marina owner Barry Fanguy. “When people go out fishing, they have a reminder of the good Lord, and it hopefully brightens their day.” While the oak trees and statue are both icons of the area, they are located behond the current plans for the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane-protection project and will likely flood in the years to come.
In search for more information about the statue, I stumbled across this photographer as well. I’m always surprised by the amount of interest that has been taken in this area in the past after the hurricanes and oil spill of the early 2000’s.
The state’s new 50-year, $50 billion draft plan for coastal protection and restoration does not do enough to replace rapidly disappearing marshes in eastern Terrebonne that protect bayou communities, residents told state officials Tuesday.
Read more in the article by Nikki Buskey.
The state Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority held one in a series of town hall meetings concerning the master plan for coastal restoration, to a group of local politicians and citizens who were clearly incensed with the decisions planned for the region.
The eastern part of the parish, the populated and more vulnerable side, remains relatively unprotected, while areas in west Terrebonne, and New Orleans, see major plans for wetland restoration to act as a barrier. Pointe-aux chenes, the Isle de Jean Charles, Cocodrie, and other far-flung bayou communities remain perilously unprotected. Money is allotted in the plan to pay to move people.
This is where I think the tension is coming from. As precise and rational as the Master Plan is, it does not take into account the cultural history of the area. Sitting on the southernmost land in Louisiana are people who have literally been pushed from their previous lands: either Native Americans or Cajuns, and have found the one place where no one would bother them, where they could live off of the land in peace.
And now, as the land becomes further stressed with a historically dangerous series of storms in Hurricanes Katrina, Gustav and Ike, and then by the BP oil spill, the most cost effective solution at the moment is to move these people off their land.
But the Houma Indians and those who still reside in the coastal bayou communities of Dularge, Dulac, Chauvin, Pointe-aux-Chenes are tied to their land in ways that cannot be calculated by any forecasting model. Their entire way of life, their spiritual calendar and physical subsistence, is tied to the fishing and hunting seasons.
Fortunately, this was a draft of the Master Plan, and perhaps the feedback that was offered will be enough motivation to reanalyze some predictions. One can only hope that after the federal government ignored the problems facing this region, the state government won’t fail to do so as well.
Reggie Dupre (first photo), a former state senator and current Terrebonne Levee Board Director, pauses in thought during the meeting, presumably thinking about the thousands of variables at stake in a thoroughly exhaustive review of the plan.
Said Dean Blanchard (second photo, left), “It seems to me like y’all used too much science and not enough Cajun ingenuity!”
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.
