|
|
"A collaborative political resource." |
In Louisiana, a Sinking Island Wars With Water and the Government
|
| Parent(s) |
Container
-
|
| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jun 18, 2006 11:13pm |
| Category | News |
| News Date | Jun 19, 2006 11:00pm |
| Description | By DAN BARRY
Published: June 19, 2006
ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, La., June 15 — All trees and farmland, the tribal chief said. With hard acres of green where cattle grazed, adults trapped game, and boys and girls of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe ran without even dampening their feet. You should have seen it.
But you can hardly imagine it, much less see it, because where gardens sprouted and children sprinted just 30 years ago, there is now a grass skirt of mushy marshland, and beyond, the rippling open waters that lead to the Gulf of Mexico.
"Water," the tribe's conflicted chief, Albert Naquin, said. "All water."
Think of a ship with expansive decks and a close-knit crew. Now think of that ship surrendering slowly to the ocean, leaving its crew clinging to an ever-sinking bow. The ship is this island, here at the bayou bottom of Louisiana, about 30 miles south of U.S. Highway 90. And its crew members are the island's inhabitants, the small band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha, related to the Choctaws and part of a larger confederation of Muskogees.
For natural and manufactured reasons, 30 square miles of South Louisiana wetlands vanish every year into the Gulf. People here say they lose a football field every 20 minutes, every half-hour, every hour — the estimates vary, but the panic is constant, partly because wetlands and barrier islands act as hurricane buffers for the vulnerable mainland. |
| Article | Read Article |
|
|
