FADING AWAY: Louisiana's Battle Against Coastal Erosion | A KATC Special Report

slowly meandering through the state the mississippi river has long been the life source of louisiana it's been an economic engine not just for the state but for the country a wild highway of goods that hasn't always cooperated [Music] yet for louisiana the river has been more than a money maker it's also been the state's most efficient builder of land normally what happens the river would overflow its banks annually it would would drop sediment there it would replenish the marshes over the last century though that sediment hasn't been delivered what we've done is cut off that lifeblood to the marshes whatever was out there was created over thousands of years before any levees were put up once the levees were put up then the deterioration started as a result of those levees louisiana is disappearing losing roughly 1900 square miles since the 1930s the equivalent of losing iberia st martin and st mary parishes and according to the coastal restoration and protection authority the cost of doing nothing would be another 4 000 square miles over the next 50 years that's the same area as losing lafayette vermillion acadia jeff davis and cameron parishes the bottom line is that the coast is disappearing and is disappearing fast [Music] it's absolutely beautiful it's a small paradise when you turn on there you just lose the rest of the world and that's what makes it so hard to see the the cancer that's eating it away it is just literally washing away in front of your eyes in 2016 the residents of ill dejean charles a small coastal community were awarded a grant to help resettle further north away from the area that they have long called home in its peak they had about 600 or so folks that lived there now we're down to about a dozen or so families these residents primarily of tribal ancestry have been living with the knowledge that their home soon will be gone and have been trying to ring the alarm bell on what's been going down along the coast you see the the dead ghost trees you can look at the bayou that's cut off we used to fish we used to crab in that body and now it's the stagnant drainage ditch every time we go down as a family you see something else something desperately has to be done to try to reverse it or we just have to to live with it and adapt to it even though the ill desean charles can't compare to what it used to those who have seen it disappear still say that the small strip left is a piece of paradise this is home it's free of all the distractions of what we know as normal life now [Music] it's quaint it's it's beautiful and it's something that you can't just find anywhere [Music] so with ill dejean charles and other coastal communities like it in such dire straits what exactly is being done to address the issue well as it turns out there are some experts out there that are hoping that a new major project for land restoration could help save the disappearing coast we can do marsh creation projects we can do shoreline protection projects but they have to be sustained and rebuilt over time as they subside or sea level rise increases louisiana's coastal master plan already includes attempts to slow down the erosion building up barrier islands and other structures to help try and protect the coast but experts say that these aren't enough and that without those river sediments helping to constantly replenish the coast those efforts are in vain if we're going to attempt to protect and restore some of this coast you have to simulate a natural system and that's what the diversion is basically it is simulating what would naturally occurred had we not altered the system in a way that we did at the coastal restoration protection authority headquarters in baton rouge engineers are working on doing just that using a replica model of the mississippi river to simulate sediment placement they plan to create two-day versions of the river which would take the sediment and use it to help create new marshland the 2017 coastal master plan included two of these diversions one in breton sound and one in barataria bay by making two different channels and gate structures engineers could divert some of the water from the mississippi through the channels and into the bays and the water would bring sediment along with it and in turn provide nutrients needed to help grow the marsh just kind of gives you here the idea out here where we'll then to be depositing that sediment in fresh water and forming basically a new delta globe and while engineers are hopeful that this could help slow down erosion and build up the coast others worry about the fresh water that would be coming in particularly those who rely on these areas to make a living when you put the mississippi river in a small confined place like barataria bay at the rate that they want to flow this thing you can completely disrupt the whole environment president of the louisiana oyster dealers and growers association ralph paulsena says oystermen in particular are vulnerable to the kinds of changes in salinity that the baritaria bay could be facing you know crabs fish swim and uh i guess it affects oysters a lot because ices don't move he grew up in an oyster family and spent most of his life out on the water you go to work before the sun comes up and you stop working after the sun goes down and you do everything outside the diversions though he says will make that a harder living that's one of the reasons why i retired too because where that's going to flow out is right where all my you know my business was right where it comes out the wilkerson canal is they have a 500 acre lease right there and it was just going to be just completely destroyed do you know people who still have leases oh yeah absolutely what do they say about it well they just they're just waiting you know soon all later something terrible is gonna happen and it's not just oysters shrimpers say the bariteria is a popular breeding ground for the brown shrimp shrimp you can't get anywhere else in louisiana in part because the salinity in other bays is lower another obstacle to an already strained industry i'm just hoping it works out for the best for them for what they do because they are they are they cherish this coastline and all the bounty that it brings to to everybody in a series of meetings the crpa met with members of the seafood industry along with members of louisiana wildlife and fisheries to try and balance the concerns of those whose livelihood rely on the impacted areas with the urgent need to address a vanishing coast the impacts of which are becoming more dire back in elder jean charles the loss of so much of the coast has forced chantal's family to leave their ancestral home behind migrating 30 miles north to houma and yet still seeing the effects even here the water is coming closer and closer inland and it's it's really scary you know it's to see that we're still 30 some miles from the coast and every time we have a storm no matter how little or how big it is you see that water line get a little bit higher each time many coastal communities in louisiana worry that they too will see their homes slowly vanish into the ever-expanding gulf of mexico we're not unique to the fact that it's not going to happen other places we just happen to be one of the first on the front lines but the engineers working on the diversions hope that their efforts can mitigate some of that loss and save others from seeing their homes sink into the sea while trying to balance the needs of those that diversions threaten we'd have to move people back from the existing coast we have to do that now it is a challenging daunting task that we are we are in a major fight against if i know louisianans i know they're going to fight to the end on on their culture and their heritage and we're going to do the darndest we can to prevent that from happening [Music] engineering has allowed the mississippi river to be a major provider for louisiana's past and now engineering may allow the mississippi to provide for louisiana's future you

Channel: KATC

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Keywords: special reports, documentary, katc

Id: rclyP2qDjik

Length: 10min 9sec (609 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2020