Encroaching Salt Water Is Threatening the State's Economy and Homes
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 13, 2003; Page A01
DULAC, LA. -- "Donald Bourg is not an old man, but he has borne witness to a millennial event. He has watched the earth -- hundreds of square miles of stunningly rich Lousiana land -- disappear before his eyes.
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The territory around Bourg's tiny hamlet of Dulac, in the ragged southern sole of Louisiana's boot, is in the heart of a vast disappearing act. Largely unnoticed until recently, nearly 2,000 square miles of southern Lousiana simply vanished in the last two-thirds of the 20th century -- the equivalent of losing Delaware, Baltimore and Washington combined. Each year, 25 to 30 square miles of marsh and dry ground sink into the gulf -- in effect, a football field every half hour. And according to recent projections, an additional 700 to 900 square miles will be swamped by 2050 unless a major drive is mounted to contain the loss.
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Few dispute that this is an environmental calamity, but for years state officials brushed it off as a fringe cause. No longer: Most of Lousiana's industrial economy is on the coast, and much of it is at risk. Over the last several years, as satellite imagery and computer projections have driven home the point, the state's bankers, oil executives, engineers and governor have awakened to the possibility of an economic disaster of epic proportions.
Lousiana's sinking coast has endangered not only the single greatest source of shrimp, oysters and other seafood outside Alaska, but also major supplies of oil and natural gas and the only deep-sea offloading terminal for supertankers in the United States. Water supplies are in peril; oil and gas lines are exposed. Entire coastal towns are sinking, and New Orleans is threatened as never before. And as the coast loses its protective buffer, inland areas are increasingly vulnerable to hurricanes, even minor ones.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48169-2003Jul12.htmlLong, fascinating article.