OBAMA'S KATRINA?

What is it about Louisiana? Maybe it has to do with the fact that large numbers of human beings were never meant to live down there in the swamps, infested with alligators, subject to the natural annual onslaught of floods, hurricanes and high storm surges. Yet, people came to Louisiana and even thrived; a local economy built by the African slave trade, by shipping up and down the Mississippi River and into the Gulf of Mexico, by the cultivation of cotton and later soybeans, by harvesting abundant seafood crops and by the discovery of oil offshore.

Which brings me to the principal point at hand: the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that threatens to engulf what's left of Louisiana's wetlands could be the death knell to all of that, the end of Louisiana as we know it and one of the most significant environmental disasters of all time. While not as insensitively and incompetently handled by President Obama as the Hurricane Katrina disaster was by President Bush, there is still plenty of blame to be shared by this President as it pertains to his role in this latest disaster to threaten America's leading producer of gumbo.

Years of building levees to the control the flow of the Mississippi River have starved the wetlands and barrier islands off the coast of the most important resource they need to remain in existence--namely silt. According to the New York Times, Louisiana has lost an area the size of the state of Delaware since 1932 and continues to lose a net of 24 square miles a year. Extensive use of boats in the wetlands have caused splashback and wave enhancements that have also eroded the marshes. Hurricanes have done huge damage, especially Katrina. Now, the Louisiana wetlands face their greatest threat yet--an oil spill which is pouring potentially millions of gallons of "sweet crude oil" in to the Gulf of Mexico. A lot of it is heading straight for the Louisiana wetlands and coastal barrier islands.

The Obama administration has placed a lot of the blame for the unfolding disaster on British Petroleum's slow reaction to the accident and to a certain laissez-faire attitude towards certain safety procedures with their oil rigs. This is true, but why did the Department of Homeland Security, the EPA and other government agencies also drag their feet? Why didn't Janet Napolitano know if the Defense Department had equipment and ships that could be mobilized to try and neutralize the spill? (I know what you're thinking--"because its the Federal government?" I know, I know...) Today, President Obama will visit the affected areas in Louisiana, much like President Bush took a belated tour of the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina. He won't like what he sees. In addition to the potential economic impact from the loss of a siginifcant portion of Louisiana's seafood harvest, there is the chance that the marshes, barrier islands and swamps that help to protect Louisiana's low-lying coast from complete innundation may now be mortally wounded for good. Louisiana is already slowly sinking into the sea (the lowest point in the state is eight feet below sea level...fifty years ago it was three feet below sea level. This point is near New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward.) The impact of years of poor environmental choices, compounded by a forseeable but still unpredictable accident like this oil spill, could be the accelerant in a chain reaction of events that lead to the accelerated loss of habitable, cultivated land in Louisiana, the continuing exodus of the state's citizens to other places, the complete collapse of the Gulf's ecosystem and even the greater likelihood of more damaging tropical storms and hurricanes in the region.

(Extended parenthetical: let us not forget that many scientists believe that the increase of monster hurricanes, Category 3 and stronger, over recent years is in itself a symptom of global warming which has heated up the world's oceans. The evidence is compelling although not enough of a slam dunk at this point to debunk the counterargument that what is happening is just a normal climactic cycle.)

None of this makes President Obama's all too eager decision to increase the amount of offshore drilling look any better. He's no Sarah Palin (remember, "Drill baby, drill"?), but the desire to cater to American desperation to suck every drop of oil out of every pore of the Earth's crust has far reaching consequences that go way beyond political efficacy or even this particular ecological disaster. The more you drill, the more accidents like this will happen, the better you have to have a plan to mitigate that disaster. Because if you don't, the larger tragedy is what happens over the next several years and it is something that will affect all of us, not just Louisianans. Laissez les bon temps roulez? Et, no.

Peace...