The Invaluable Marsh surrounding New Orleans

Coastal wetlands are flat marshy, swampy, or boggy areas of land, both beautiful and mysterious, that filter and cleanse drinking water, retain flood waters, incubate and harbor fish and shellfish, support other wildlife, and provide stopping points for migrating waterfowl. The delta sediment surrounding New Orleans is really the basis of the food chain that supports life in this region. The seafood industry so much a part of New Orleans depends on the marshes.

Every 2 to 3 three miles of marsh can reduce the height of a storm surge by one foot. However, wetland destruction contributes to flooding, pollution runoff, and loss of important habitat and threatens fisheries and oil and gas infrastructures that serve the entire nation. But 30,000 miles of these very pipeline canals and large navigation channels opened the wetlands to erosion and salt water intrusion that has run devastatingly unchecked, changing the natural flow of water and killing native plants that held the soil. The wakes caused by the large supply vessels still continuously loosen the banks. Salinity changes effect many species, oysters cannot survive when the water becomes more than 50% the salinity of the gulf.

Louisiana wetland loss – a football field every 40 minutes - is thought to be the highest in the world. What value is placed on the approximately 735 species of birds, finfish, shellfish, reptiles, amphibians and mammals that live or develop in these estuaries? “What about the 602,000 people who live in and depend on these estuaries? Multigenerational familes - croatian, cajun, italian, german, chinese, vietiamise, spanish, african, phillipine – since their immigration have all struggled and contributed to the life in the marsh. It is the tenacious spirit of these adaptable, hard working families that will draw the attention of responsible policy-makers to somehow prevent the loss of the Louisiana wetlands.

Sidney Wilder

A New Orleanian, who has temporarily lost her home and her boat, is Director of Exhibitions for the annual Grand Isle Juried Exhibition which raises awareness of coastal erosion.