Tagwetlands

Louisiana’s wetlands do not need this

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The big, potentially positive story in Louisiana environmental circles has been the push to restore the state’s depleted wetlands. It had become increasingly clear that something had gone terribly wrong in the Bayou State, where the swamps define a way of life — and also perform a very important role. These reedy marshes — as regular readers know well by now — are...

Louisiana can’t afford to do nothing about its shrinking wetlands

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Restoring wetlands is certainly an expensive proposition. Even with monies available from sources such as the massive settlement that BP reached with Louisiana, the federal government and other Gulf states over the Deepwater Horizon spill, officials struggle to come up with all the funds needed to replenish coastline and bring back to life marshes and bayous that have been destroyed by energy...

Here’s more bad news for Louisiana seafood

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One of the first stories that I’ve covered since the very beginning of this blog is the threat to Louisiana seafood. It’s certainly an issue that I can relate to, as a New Orleans native who grew up eating the rich harvest from the nearby Gulf of Mexico. And needless to say, it was particularly heartbreaking in the early days to have to report in the early days of the BP Deepwater...

Even $50 billion won’t bring back all of Louisiana’s lost wetlands

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There’s good news and bad news when it comes to the effort to restore the massive amount of coastal wetlands — some 1,800 square miles, or one-and-a-half times the size of Rhode Island — that Louisiana has lost over the last 85 years, roughly around the same time period that Big Oil has been doing its business in the state. Aside from the loss of so much biodiversity in a state...

The damage from Deepwater Horizon that can’t be restored

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The 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe is back in the news again, thanks to this weekend’s release of the blockbuster Hollywood movie about the rig explosion. Once again, Americans are talking again about a story that had seemed to fade from the picture — even though it would be a huge mistake to anyone to forget the worst ecological disaster in American history. It will certainly be...

Finally, Louisiana takes the fight to Big Oil

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For a long time, you had to wonder what it would take for environmental protection to finally become “a thing” in the state of Louisiana. After all, my native state has been whacked over the head with a crisis either caused by, or made worse by, its lack of concern for the ecology on more than one occasion. The nightmare and the massive loss of life that was 2005’s Hurricane...

Louisiana still one bad storm away from environmental disasters

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One consequence of the recent 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina was a chance to reflect just how lucky New Orleans and the surrounding parishes have been recently — at least when it comes to weather. Of course, no major hurricane has struck Louisiana in a while, and so far 2015 has been largely free of severe tropical weather. On the other hand, that may also provide a false sense of...

More evidence that BP got off too easily

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Last week I wrote here that BP’s $54 billion payout for damages and restoration from the 2010 Gulf oil spill just wasn’t really enough — both because of the ongoing environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil that continues to wash up on our beaches and because dollars trumped real accountability. You won’t hear that critique too much from public officials, who are...

BP: “Never mind the tar mats and dead dolphins, the Gulf is healthy”

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BP just keeps stepping in it — this time I mean almost literally. The British oil giant is desperately trying to get out front of the 5th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy with a series of exculpatory moves, includes a website that tries weakly to contradict the damning flood of scientific research about the ongoing environmental problems in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, BP took...

La. is “Losing Ground,” and Big Oil is a big reason why

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A lot of folks in Louisiana are talking today — the 9th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall — about a major investigation by the New Orleans-based website, The Lens, and the award-winning investigative-reporting outfit, ProPublica, looking at the dramatic loss of wetlands in my native state. Perhaps the most jaw-dropping element of the project is an interactive map that...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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