Louisiana Coastal Land

The Everglades is an ecosystem like no other. Its survival depends on immediate actions and restoration. To begin with, CERP will act with the removal of more than 240 miles of canals and levees, greatly improving the health of the Everglades. By removing these canals and levees it will replenish 2.4 million acres with the water it needs. “The restoration of hydrologic conditions of the original natural areas of the south Florida ecosystem will result in Lake Okeechobee once again becoming a healthy lake,” (CERP: the Plan in Depth). Without the canals blocking the way and diverting the water to the coasts, the water will be able to flow back into natural areas. By having all the manmade canals deposit into one area, that area becomes infested

Giving full credit to restricting the Mississippi River as the culprit for loss of wetlands is not accurate. The booming oil and gas exploration of the 1970’s and 1980’s merits a name on the marquee as well. The pipelines and canals used to transport the resources to the outside world placed a great deal of stress on the fragile wetlands. Erosion from the barges in and out of the marshes as well as the salt water allowed into the fresh water, providing a precarious habitat for fresh water species – flora and fauna alike. Plants provide root systems to hold soil in place. Fish and fowl provide an economy for the area. Enter

The characteristic warming climate of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene resulted in rising sea levels which contributed to the formation of the various deltas in the New Orleans area (Dunbar, Britsch, 2008). The natural formation of these deltas produced coastal wetlands that represent 30% of coastal wetlands currently in the United States (Cigler, 2007). In addition to these wetlands, the Mississippi River was surrounded by substantial forest growth (Pabis, 1998).

The Coastal Plains of Texas is a large area that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to beyond the Rio Grande. This region can be divided into 5 distinct areas.

Last year while traveling in Italy I was approached by a lovely lady who immediately started asking questions about the United States. When she found out my home was in Louisiana she got really excited. She had relatives in New Orleans but had never been able to go to visit them. We carried on quite a conversation. Telling her about the hot summers, Cajun food, and cool music made me miss my home.

On a small peninsula, 70 miles southwest of New Orleans, there is a single stretch of road that leads into a fascinating place called Isle de Jean Charles. This is a place where living off the land is a way of life that is quickly becoming impossible to accomplish. The wetlands that used to provide nourishment for the plants and wildlife have now been replaced with the water from the Gulf and neither the freshwater marshes nor the vegetation were able to sustain this intrusion. Where there used to be a forest full of animals for trapping and hunting, there is salty water rippled only by poisoned carcasses of massive oak trees that still stand. The people living on the island are desperate and the Army Corps of Engineers has the power to help. The residents of Isle de Jean Charles deserve to see their children and grandchildren grow up on the land that they call home, but at what cost?

Many things have changed in the way in the way people live, the Indians used to trust fully off the land, providing for their daily needs. These days, people depend on technology and other people to supply the food, drinks, and the necessities they need. Living off the land, to “live on whatever food one can obtain by hunting, gathering, or subsistence farming.” (Oxford Dictionary, screen 1), has a different meaning to modern day society than it did back in the days where people made a living and survived by it.

As it stands today the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico is losing more and more land; the amount of land lost each year may seem relatively small to the average person, but to scientists who understand the unprecedented rate at which this is happening, there is reason to be alarmed. On the U.S. coast of the Gulf of Mexico there are more reasons for the rising sea level than simply global warming and melting ice sheets or ice caps. In the Mississippi delta, for example, the oil industry is taking so much fluid (oil) out of the ground that the land is sinking and compacting further. There is also a decrease in the amount of sediment reaching the delta due to many man-made structures, such as levees, drudging, dikes, and

The Everglades Restoration Plan is the policy to increase the flow of clean water to the Everglades, in an effort to protect the environment, provide for recreational activities, and supply South Florida with a clean supply of potable water. At a cost of more than $10.5 billion and with a 35+ year time-line, this is the largest hydrologic restoration project ever undertaken in the United States. The Federal Government approved Florida’s landmark water quality project that, once constructed, all parties agree will provide the clean water the Everglades need (Scott, 2013). The Everglades restoration has been hampered by decades of futile bickering over how to decide the most rational approach to restoring the flow of water to the Everglades.

The article “Louisiana is losing a football field of wetlands an hour, new U.S. Geological Survey study says” by Mark Schleifstein provides the reader with lots of detail on how much land Louisiana is losing. By giving statistics and reason why Louisiana is losing so much land.

On April 30,1803 the Louisiana territory, which was a third of the land for the new nation we call America, was purchased from France for fifteen million dollars. This helped fund Napoleon’s war against Great Britain. Thomas Jefferson made this decision because Jefferson did not want any other nation ruling in that territory, because Jefferson did not want to feel threatened with natives from the new land and France trying to take over America. Another reason for this decision was because Congress pressed Jefferson to see if Jefferson wanted to either expand land or have other nations rule in the new mother land. After the purchase was done Thomas Jefferson had

Louisiana is one of the American states which have a rich diversity of people. Some of them include the original Indian inhabitants, the Spanish, French, Africans, Italians, German, Africans, West Indians, and the British among others. When compared to other states, Louisiana has the most colorful past. Since, the beginning of 1541, the state had been governed by ten different flags. Purchase negotiations between the United States and French started in April 1803 in Paris for a treaty that would see the province of Louisiana become a territory of America (Sacher 4). At that time Louisiana had not been explored, mapped or surveyed by the United States or any European nation, making it hard to define its boundaries (HNOC 4). A deal was eventually

Obviously, it has been largely ignored in how resources are extracted, leading to the issue of wetland degradation. Oil drilling and driving boats to and from drills eroded large sections of the wetlands. However, the issue of degradation cannot be completely solved. The Louisiana state government has acknowledged that even with its restoration program, it cannot build enough land to offset the losses. Under the principle of stewardship, we understand that the poor are affected first and worst, which is clearly seen in coastal Louisiana. Not only are the poor affected more because they often live on the front lines of environmental decay but also because, as a culture, we rush to protect more affluent communities first. More resources are allocated to protect New Orleans from flooding than coastal fishing communities like Jean Lafitte. Within the coastal towns though, residents have upheld stewardship in their communion with the area and reciprocal understanding of how to care for

Since the 1950s, Florida 's population has risen at an annual rate of approximately four percent. In the [past] 50 years, more than eight million acres of forest and wetland habitats (about 24 percent of the state) have been cleared to accommodate the expanding human population. In 1990, about 19 acres per hour of forest, wetland, and agricultural land [were] being converted for urban uses. Because of this growth, Florida’s ecosystems are now

Everglades, the largest subtropical wetland of North America, has encountered anthropogenic perturbation since the last quarter of 19th century when canals were built and peatlands were drained for economic gain (Godfrey and Catton, 2011). Since then, the system has been exploited, drained, polluted and changed from its natural setup to escalate and widen the potential services from it. The present state is a highly regulated system to buttress economic productivity and fulfill several regional demands. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan, one of the world’s largest restoration initiative, aims to restore, protect and preserve the water resources of central and southern Florida (National Research Council, 2014). While the restoration program is built on a foundation of retrospective science backed by several years of sophisticated research on understanding the Everglades and similar ecosystem (Estenoz and Bush, 2015), the human dimension of restoration was not studied adequately(Clarke and Dalrymple, 2003; Kranzer, 2002; National Research Council, 2014). Particularly, the spatial extent of residents’ preference or the heterogeneity of their opinion is important for CERP as the plan aims to restore ecosystem without compromising the present services (e.g. flood control, water for agricultural, urban and industrial uses etc.), which are also spatially related.