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In louisiana, rising seas threaten native americans' land. by ferujkll sdff
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In louisiana, rising seas threaten native americans' land. |
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Business,Business News,Business Opportunities
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Louisiana Public Broadcasting was our partner in this report. HARI SREENIVASAN: It used to be a long walk for Theresa Dardar to reach herancestors' cemetery here in coastal Louisiana. We had to take aboat ride with her to visit the burial site that is surrounded bywater, because coastal Louisiana is sinking and the sea levelaround it is rising. THERESA DARDAR, Pointe-au-Chien Tribe Member: We're not going to have anything forour children to see, you know, if it keeps on washing away, if theydon't try to stop it some kind of way. So, they will never see whatwe saw.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Dardar is a member of the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe. Her tribe andseveral others settled on the edge of Louisiana in the 1840s.That's when the Indian Removal Act forced thousands of NativeAmericans off their land. They headed south and west to the bayou. Now different forces are taking their land away again. Albert Naquin knows the sea is coming for his ancestral home.
How much of this was all land? All that water that we're seeing outthere? ALBERT NAQUIN, Biloxi-Chitimacha Chief: All that water was land. Actually, it was-- it was basically all land, except for a few ponds here andthere. HARI SREENIVASAN: Isle de Jean Charles is a narrow ridge of land located inTerrebonne Parish. It is home to a native community descending fromChoctaw, Houma, Biloxi, and Chitimacha Indians. Naquin is chief andgrew up on the island.
He left several years ago when the rising waters' damage to hishome and livelihood became overwhelming. ALBERT NAQUIN: I was born there in 1946. HARI SREENIVASAN: And what was life like? ALBERT NAQUIN: Life was good. Life was -- it was like paradise, actually.
If I wasto be reborn again as a child, I would want to be raised there, ifthe community was like it was back in 1946. HARI SREENIVASAN: In the 1950s, the island was 11 miles long and five miles across.Now it is no more than two miles long and a quarter-mile across.Where residents once used to trap, hunt and plant gardens, deadtrees stand in ghost forests because their root systems were unableto adapt to the saltwater intruding from the Gulf. Alex Kolker studies what is happening here. He teaches coastalgeology at the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. ALEX KOLKER, Professor of Coastal Geology, Louisiana Universities MarineConsortium: The ground at which Louisiana sits on is sinking, andit's sinking at a relatively high rate.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He says some of the reasons that the land is sinking and eroding soquickly are manmade ones. In the 1920s, people built levees tochannel the mighty Mississippi River. That prevented floods, butrobbed the marshlands of necessary sediment. Without sediment, thebarrier islands and wetlands that protected the coast from intensestorms sank into the Gulf.
The marshes were damaged even more by decades of oil exploration.From the air, you can see the miles and miles of canals that wereused to transport fuel out. Even after the wells were shut down,the canals remained open, leaving pathways for the saltwater of theocean to eat away at the freshwater wetlands. Now the rising sea level has added to the problem. The average sealevel in Southeast Louisiana is rising at a rate of three feetevery 100 years.
That is according to 60 years of tidal gaugerecords. That's unusually high, say scientists like TorbjornTornqvist of Tulane University. TORBJORN TORNQVIST, Geoscientist, Tulane University: Prior to the IndustrialRevolution, The rates of sea level rise along the Gulf Coast wasabout five times lower than it has been in the last century. Therates we see nowadays are high enough that the last time we -- thiswhole region experienced rates like at that rate is more than 7,000years ago.
And that's a time when we still had a big ice sheet here in --further north in North America that was melting at very high rates.That was the main cause of that rapid sea level rise. HARI SREENIVASAN: Scientists say that, as the Earth's temperature increases, theoceans also warm and water expands. The combination of risingoceans and sinking land means that Louisiana's coastal sea level isrising at a higher rate than other coastal areas, says Alex Kolker. ALEX KOLKER: South Louisiana has experienced rates that may be on the order ofseveral centimeters a year, so maybe up to an inch a year in somecases. HARI SREENIVASAN: And the results of all that water are stark.
In just the last 100years, Louisiana's coast has lost 1,900 square miles of land.That's an area of land the size of Manhattan lost every year, or afootball field every hour. ALEX KOLKER: And so I think that the lesson that South Louisiana -- that SouthLouisiana can provide to the nation is what a high rate of sealevel rise can do to the coast. And that is, it can convert landinto open water. It can allow storm surges to propagate furtherinland and be destructive to infrastructure and even people'slives.
HARI SREENIVASAN: It is a hard lesson and may get even harder. The state ofLouisiana recently drafted its own 50-year plan to restore thecoast. State officials admit that maintaining the current coastlinemay be next to impossible, and they are trying to prepare forscenarios in accordance with the Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange's reports, which predict that sea level rise will acceleratein the next century. But what does that mean for the native residents? Many here lackthe resources to leave. Several tribes in the region are notrecognized by the federal government, meaning they have no accessto the assistance and benefits entitled to other native peoples.Remaining residents like Doris Naquin say they are rooted on theisland.
DORIS NAQUIN, Resident of Isle de Jean Charles: You can't just uproot. Like thisoak tree, you can't just uproot it, and say, well, I'm going toplant it somewhere else, because you know its going to die. Youwon't be able to plant it somewhere else, because it's too big now.Well, we know too much, and we're too rooted and grounded here. HARI SREENIVASAN: Chris Brunet is also staying put.
CHRIS BRUNET, Resident of Isle de Jean Charles: Being Native American, being aChoctaw Indian, its not like it's passive. It's very much home.This land may not be worth much in value, but this land has fed ourpeople. This land has given to us. And we are still here.
And thisland may not be much, but this land is ours. HARI SREENIVASAN: In spite of being in a wheelchair, and requiring an elevator toreach his house on stilts, Chris Brunet takes care of his niece andnephew, ages 9 and 10. CHRIS BRUNET: If you're living down here, it also takes a commitment. It's gotto be more than just, well, this is where I'm from.
You got to say,I want to live here in spite of. HARI SREENIVASAN: Storms frequently submerge the only road connecting Isle de JeanCharles to the mainland, leaving residents like Brunet stranded. CHRIS BRUNET: If somebody gets sick, well, then they need to be air-med out ofhere. But that's just one of the things that you deal with.
HARI SREENIVASAN: But they are among the few who have stayed. Less than 30 familiesnow make their home here, too few to make levees worth the expense,according to Louisiana's latest coastal plan. Garret Graves, Chairman of the Coastal Protection and RestorationAuthority was interviewed by our partners at Louisiana PublicBroadcasting. GARRET GRAVES, Chairman, Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority: Wedetermined that it would take literally hundreds of millions ofdollars to build a levee around that community. You have about 30homes there.
And so, when you do the math, looking at the amount ofmoney it would take and the homes, it was -- it didn't rank as highas some other investments. We have put what we refer to as non-structural investments,elevating homes. And, in some cases, if the community chooses torelocate to other areas, we may even be able to provide assistancein that manner. But you have to prioritize. HARI SREENIVASAN: Those who remain are not giving up hope that their home will besaved.
DORIS NAQUIN: We're going to fight for it, and we're going to go to meetings anddo whatever we need to do. HARI SREENIVASAN: Chief Naquin supports those who choose to leave, but he alsoworries for the fate of his tribe as people are displaced and thetribe scatters. And for Theresa Dardar of the Pointe-au-Chien, the Gulf isswallowing her tribal identity. What's a tribe without people or land? THERESA DARDAR: Well, there is no tribe if you don't have -- I don't think. I thinkyou need your people and you need your land.
Our land is slowlywashing away. HARI SREENIVASAN: A cost that cannot be calculated for coastal Louisiana. JUDY WOODRUFF: There is much more about this subject on our Web site, including slide shows with the residents of the threatened area , and aerial views of how the land has changed over the last 50 years. I am Wiring Accessories writer, reports some information about harley davidson radios , car seat protector.
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