Le Show; 2019-03-17

From deep inside your audio device of choice. Ladies and gentlemen, it saddens me for one reason to say that I'm not doing a live show for you today, a live loose show for you today, because this week saw the most refreshing life-affirming news event, aside from the oncoming advent of spring itself, buried during the era already here in Southern California, once this program is originating today. But no, aside from that, the most life-affirming, revivifying news event of the week, the unmasking and announcing of a scandal, a widespread long-term conspiracy-laced scandal that has nothing to do with the Trump administration.

I wish I was here, I mean I'm here, but I wish I were doing a live show so I could just bask in all of that, but I can't, and I won't. This is a program that's been recorded and features, I think, some fascinating conversation with a person who knows probably way too much about what's going on with our environment. So sit back, don't relax, and enjoy this edition of Hello, Welcome to the Show. Like, subscribe, comment, and click the bell for more videos! The wind tonight ain't all that cries, these are tears for all our time, she knows I'm going with the season chain, looking at me and my hair, her say, they shot just a little bit longer, you'll be gone so long now, where's the

station, just a little bit longer, you'll pass by, you'll be gone so long now, where's the station, just a little bit longer, you'll pass by, you'll pass by, you'll be gone so long now, where's the station, just a little bit longer, you'll pass by, you'll pass by, you'll pass by, she knows I'm going with the season chain, looking at me and my

baby, till I turn myself wherever I'm on a hearsay, Malaysia, just a little bit longer, you'll be gone so long, I'm west, Malaysia, just a little bit longer, you pass back, you'll pass, Malaysia, just a little bit longer, you'll be gone so long, I'm west, Malaysia, just a little bit longer, you pass back, you'll pass Malaysia, just a little bit longer, you pass back, you'll pass

You pass back, you pass back, you pass back, you pass back Listeners for a long time, or long time listeners as I call them, are aware that from time to time we take long looks at the state of the environment particularly in New Orleans and South Louisiana on winning this program, I went into great detail over the the punitive causes of the 2005 flood and had some follow-up stuff and now we have the opportunity to follow up some more on both that subject and the general state of the environment in perhaps America's most environmentally challenged state. And my guest today is perfectly suited to discuss that. He's been an environmental reporter for the New Orleans Times Picky Un for the Lens which is a nonprofit newsroom here in New Orleans.

Basically every English language publication that has anything to any interest in the environment has called on the services of my guest today Bob Marshall. Welcome Bob. It's a pleasure to be here. Now you made some news, although I thought it got much less attention that deserved with some reporting you did a couple of years ago when you were still running for the New Orleans advocate. And you I think we're the first person to report the first person I saw to report that the new improved $14 billion system the core of engineers was building to protect New Orleans to enhance New Orleans risk reduction from hurricanes. They don't use the word protection anymore. I guess their lawyers have advised them not to was built to a lower standard than the original system which catastrophically failed. Why were you the only person to do report that? Well, I guess I was the only one at the time at a meeting to put the story out.

And I asked questions of these expert engineers on the Southeast Louisiana flood protection authority east and some of the people with the state as well. Including now congressman Garrett graves who at that time was head of the coastal protection restoration authority. Also I had done a lot of investigative reporting in the wake of Katrina and and came across myself and colleagues. And I had done a really deep dig on the whole history of the original New Orleans and vicinity hurricane protection system as it was called 1963 65 rather. And so you know as a reporter you try to find out exactly what they're giving you. And and there was a lot of talk from engineers who were overseeing the core is new project of just what we're getting. And so I had covered this from the beginning after Katrina doing the investigations on why the system failed. All the mistakes the core made and some of the lies many of the lies they told and which they later admitted by the way this is not shocking news shouldn't be.

But and so I kept on that story and then it really goes back to the Bush administration the George W Bush administration the city was desperately trying to reopen you know on its knees companies moving no one's living here. So how do you get reopened well you've got to have insurance first of after you pump the city out to get people to come back in and stay after this federal levy disaster. You have to have insurance and how do you get insurance from the national flood insurance program well then you've got to have it certified at a certain level of risk et cetera et cetera. And the city administration at that time said look this thing as we now know was not built was never finished was not raised to the level you said it was raised to it's built out of garbage in many places and breeds in 60 different places. We need it rebuilt they said fine W came down here stood in Jackson Square with great lighting behind him and swore to make the city hole and do a better job.

The law that created the first system said that it should be built to withstand the most severe meteorological event that could happen that was a category five hurricane. It was never built it didn't withstand category three and so they said they were to replace it and so the state said okay that means obviously according to the law category five. At the same time there was a war there was this war dragging on right in Iraq. I heard of that yeah in other places and that push administration came back and said we'll give you category three we'll do five later look you got to get open in a hurry and three will be easier and faster to do. And you know what's the state the city going to say at that point you know no until look just hurry up and build this so so we began as a reporter began looking at what is category three. In the meantime all these things change as you mentioned its risk reduction it's not necessarily protection.

We can't stop a hurricane from coming in or flooding over topping levies that kind of stuff. And so category three basically is the lower standard of protection than what the first system was supposed to protect this from. So it is at a lower level and I'll never forget interviewing one of these great engineers on the flood protection authority. And one of the meetings which wasn't well attended and he was asked the question you know how safe are we. And he said well we're much safer than we were before obviously I'm paraphrasing him here but he did say this. You know my daughter and son are thinking of buying a house here and this fellow is in another state as I had to tell them look if you have a 30 year mortgage the odds are this system will be over topped at least once before you finish paying off that house. So that's the statistical result of a one in one hundred year event.

The whole one hundred year event thing is not with the original legislation the law called for. And so what is it called for probably a one in three hundred to one in four hundred year event. And the Dutch build to a one in ten thousand year event. In some places fifty thousand years. So you know it's a different perspective you know how do you approach these problems what type of protection. And it's not just here you know there have been stories since then after Katrina which was a real eye opener. You know most of the levies and many of the dams in this country most of the levies are not built to the so called one hundred year flood. Which is most of the levies and river systems. So our whole infrastructure and flood protection is in bad shape and in fact the national flood insurance plan everything that's based on that the risk factors are just so out of date that they need to be recalculated recalibrated. I mean we've had with global warming the hoax that is happening.

We've had in Louisiana alone we've had the I think a one thousand year rainfall to five hundred year rain falls in just the last four years. Now let me just also say to your listeners how there that the system we have in place now is far superior that anything that was built before. Well and and to just depend to that one that was built before failed catastrophically and more than as you say in more than sixty locations so that's not a high bar. No but let me put it out of the way this is a good system. The other system was no one was really watching it. The core and its and its ipad this big review they did cost ten million dollars and the key word was this was a system in name only in every engineer said yes that's the way to tell it so what does that say to the average person it means that if you were building a chain to connect you to your child and holding them in a flood water then the links weren't all connected basically. And so it wasn't going to work and I have to say part of the problem was you know we had never had this catastrophic type of event this the type of storm that came in and pushed the waves across the lake in this way.

And by the way the listeners should know we know everyone I'll never forget after Katrina when congressional delegations came down and right here in Lakeview this area town that we're in right now which isn't a very old area but and it was a guy who was speaker the house guy named Danny has to yes he's in jail now for doing bad things of boys. Wrestling coach yes too much wrestling not enough coaching am I pinned yet coach the anyway he he was told at that point or where you're standing Congressman is you know below sea level what and someone said you know yeah a lot of the city on the sea level and he said famously well you'd have to be stupid to live here and wait a minute most of the city is not on the sea level right it wasn't then the majority might be now for the reasons but this new system was built to higher standards after Katrina the core read their whole design book that's why a lot of these are so much more expensive now because they're designed to protect people instead of cattle which is the standard the old system was designed on and that's why it costs 14 and a half billion.

And it was being watched by everyone outside engineers were watching it and just as importantly the media was watching it the old system was being built without until really 2003 without any real media inspection of it we weren't doing our job and and so you know this this system is built very solid it's being armored which is important on the protection. The city side of these levies and most of the experts say that there is really just a slim chance in a similar. If it's over top by you know a category 100 year 200 year storm surge that that it's unlikely any of them will breach and collapse if it's only over topped that's not a big issue the city has these enormous pumps and drainage.

For example high cast after Katrina showed that the levies that collapse along the Mississippi River Gulf outlet in New Orleans east head and collapse the water and same amount of powers in New Orleans east would have been maybe shin deep instead of 12 feet deep so you know a levies over topped only for a few hours and you can pump that stuff out. The problem is I understand it from a friend of mine who's a whistleblower in the core who looked at the internal emails of the core after was that I can 2012 where you mentioned journalists journalists from CBS and the New York Times were embedded at one of the pumping stations and dutifully wrote down when the core said see the system works. She says the danger now is from a hurricane which carries severe rainfall into the city.

Well New Orleans flooding in the past it's another thing that these most people don't realize our highest risk of flooding in the past and always going into the future is rainfall. That's where our most of our that flood damage comes from outside of Katrina the only of the time we were flooded by a hurricane was Betsy or a similar reason there were breaches on the industrial canal the we call the inner city navigation canal which we call the industrial canal down in the ninth ward. So rain is always a problem here and of course what happened with Houston a couple of years ago with the hurricane there the worst case scenario always is a slow moving storm it just sits there and drops rain and in that case it's stalled yeah but her point was that we have this great system with these great pumps the pump rain water into these canals and when there's a hurricane the gates between the canals and the lake close. Well and therefore the rain water cannot be dumped into the lake as is the normal practice and the core never fixed the walls of those canals and that we got if they had rained for two more hours during Ike the city would have flooded again.

You know I'm not aware of that I'll certainly look into it as I understand it the new pumps they're building an installing that they have temporary pumps out there being replaced will have enough force to pump out even against higher lake levels so I don't think that's as big a concern but I'll certainly follow that up when when the new pumps are. Yeah they're being built now yeah but the problem is keeping them working as well yeah you know the city has obviously a lot of risks and you know it's it's not a place to live if well for the fate of art well I mean it's I mean there's a lot of risk in San Francisco Los Angeles risk you know there are different types of risk God you know California you know earthquake fire dropped a mudslide tornado alley in the center. Yeah you know and that was another thing that upset us is people you know you should just move the city yeah okay you know why don't we you know and why don't we move people from Kansas yeah at least we have warnings here.

Let me let me switch gears now and and go to a bigger picture which is south Louisiana New Orleans sits sort of a top a rapidly disappearing landmass that has had forest cypress forests and other swamp grown protections for us from storm surge and from hurricane winds and it's going is is land lost still a football field an hour I hate that analogy it's not what you what do you have against football well well since the obvious yeah since the Rams game yeah everything so it's now a football field every 100 minutes so things are improving it it's now 16 square miles a year that we're losing in our bottom third our coastal zone that's just that's not just Mars and wooded wetlands swamps it's also some of the high the high ground the natural levees and all the distributors the ridges we have down here and we've lost barrier islands to it right yeah we've lost 2000 square miles of our coastal zone in 80 years the football field every 100 minutes I hate that's an analogy the state uses a lot is very dramatic but I caution people I can't take you out somewhere in the Mars sit you down and have you

watch a football field disappear that's a cumulative effort a number for every grass that that is every blade of grass that that turns to open water from Texas to Mississippi over like 80 years some years it's worse some years it's not as bad so so that's still yeah it's still a big big problem most of southeast Louisiana when you look at a satellite shot of southeast Louisiana New Orleans all the way over to the Chafalaya basin almost north to Baton Rouge it looks like a big solid landmass right over 2 million people live there but if you take off if you use a satellite infrared image where different land covers have different colors and you take off what's wet now what's left really two little fingers of land all on the Mississippi River and Biola Fouche sticking out in the Gulf of Georgia from Mexico and that's why those wetlands are important those are linear levees and they're the basically there the the the engine that drives fisheries production not just for Louisiana but for most of Gulf South so yeah we're still losing it and it's about to it the city the state rather is in a do or die race for survival for the lower third of the state

against subsidence this whole this these are all deltas of the river they're sinking because the deltas were cut off from their supply of sediment from the rivers with levees and then what was left there was eviscerated by about 15,000 miles of canals for oil gas shipping and pipeline for the oil and gas industry primarily and the plumbing was destroyed the natural plumbing the natural plumbing a delta can maintain a television against a sea a natural delta coastal delta three main ways the first way obviously the most important or annual floods that spread this sediment out adding another layer on top of the delta second way is a base the plant base of all the plants in this delta when being the founder New Orleans 300 years ago the S where the Mississippi River was 6,000 square miles this was the Amazon of North America it was still growing into the shallow Gulf of Mexico even into the early 1900s once the levees were good levees were finally finished after the great flood of 27 1927 you remember that one here yeah I'll go way back yeah but you were talking now about Mississippi River levees yeah but also levees that that levee cut off all the distributaries all the side channels down here that also fed

and built this delta this massive delta and and so that's sinking and according to Noah this is the fastest sinking large coastal landscape in the world and I mean all the world's deltas are in trouble yeah this one's sinking even faster main it's because it's a fairly young delta and at the mouth of the river 70 miles south of New Orleans it's sinking in about four to five feet a century their areas in southeast not far from New Orleans outside these levees you know the average elevation here's about two and a half feet and some areas are sinking at about an inch every 30 months and that's 18 inches and 50 year three feet the century so then you add sea level rise and that's why Noah has said this area will probably see the highest amount of sea level rise of any place in North America before the end of the century because you when you add what's happening on the land the subsidence or subsidence to what's happening in the sea with sea level rise

it's called relative sea level rise what's happening on land relative to the sea that gets us to about five to five and a half feet before the end of the century two things have to be done we have to reduce emissions which is driving sea level rise and we have to start pumping reconnecting the river some kind of way with its low dissettlement back to these sinking deltas so there the state has a plan to sort of simulate nature create these two big diversions of Mississippi River water and hopefully the sediment within to start pumping it out to the surrounding landscape and hopefully revive the delta creation process and it's brought for two reasons that I understand one is fishermen oyster men are saying no don't divert the water dredge instead and to the state has no idea where to get the money for this 50 billion to 100 billion dollar plan and one of the ways that was envisioned to be a source of that money was this notorious lawsuit filed by the the levy board against 93 petroleum and petroleum and oil services companies that suit died when bobby jindal was still governor of new oil and we did that right yeah he he actually got a bill passed to kill the loss of retroactively really what happened to it it was killed in in the

federal court basically the federal courts ruled that the levy board didn't have standing it wasn't killed on the merits of their case it was killed on a you know judicial technicalities which are important so so that one's gone what about the apart me the local parishes in some areas they they have standing and so that's going forward and the only gas companies are fighting them as well trying to get there's those cases move the federal court where they think they have a better chance especially in the fifth district court of appeals here the U.S. Justice Department the federal system it's fairly conservative so this 50 I'll tell your listeners if they don't know we have this

50 year plan inaugurated in 2007 after Katrina announced that 50 billion dollars and $20 $10 when you do average inflation like two lane has done it comes to $92 billion by 2067 half that money goes to structural defenses for our coastal communities flood walls levy's maybe raising houses that type of thing and the other half is devoted to trying to rebuild some of the wetlands that have now open water and try to hold on to some of what we have left they'll do that two main ways what we call pump and dump it's called marsh creation in the plan basically mining sediment from the rivers and pumping it into these wetlands that have become open water nearby and then also mining it from offshore it's for us 20 miles offshore from previous miles of river and pumping that in to the beaches to rebuild these beaches and we've actually been doing that

the problem with pumping dump is for example three initial projects in the Paris south of New Orleans they can build 700 acres two and a half feet above sea level I don't know eight and nine months or about 30 million dollars and what happens in 20 years it's got to be done again because it's going to sink again and open out now it's become much more efficient so it may not cost that much but that's the whole problem with pump and dump the other way they would do this is what's called controlled river sediment diversions no one's ever built one of these anywhere in the world simple explanation is floodgate you'd put floodgates in the levy at key spots most of this is south of New Orleans and when the river is up carrying all that mud and freshwater it open those gates let it go out and rebuild like you know mimic what the river did initially these things will be very expensive the the only one we have that's moving close to maybe boots on the ground as you

say shovels and construction will cost about 1.3 billion dollars but once it's built it can build land as long as the river is flowing right the river does the pumping work the river carries all the mud you don't have to put this initial investment back in there so you mentioned who's against it some oyster men and trumpers and some sports fishermen sport fishing guides don't want to see this happen because if you were this is called restoration because we're restoring the area to what it was like before we screwed it up right and these fishermen have been making a really nice living as the system has degraded because the most productive era for a coastal delta as far as total fishery production is when it's been abandoned by its river and it's crumbling and opening up and becoming brackish it has more edge more

shoreline and as the marshy roads it's priming that pump for the food chain that drives shrimp production the perfect mixture for oysters finfish well speckle trout red drum redfish flound all these other things make me hungry yeah I know I'm ready to go right now so so um so they've been you know basically feeding off this corpse is dying this but it's a natural thing you know and and they've been having great luck I should say like they've been having great success oyster fisherman to some of the wealthies people in the state now if you turn it back to the way it was when our grandfather's and great grandfather showed up here you'll change a salinity from brackish to salt which is what it's become to fresh which means a lot of the shrimp will be further out the oysters can't grow in that fresh water you have to relocate those guys and the the the area where you're catching the spotted sea trout speckle trout and red drum you'll

cast catch largemouth bass and cropy which we call sockily so so that'll change and that'll that'll relocate their target species now if they go a lot farther or just go out of business so they don't want to see this happen if it doesn't happen they want to see just dredge and pump and don't change a salinity it's no way you can afford that you just don't have the money and it's not as efficient oh you can do it faster you're gonna run out of sediment you can't you the river isn't you can't just go dig anywhere in the river because you have to make sure the ship's coming up this is a vicious portennation by tonnage so so they're fighting it the state was pretty heavy handed originally saying look you know here's a problem once the marsh is gone and the water becomes too saline a hyposolinity you don't have any business anyway no and you'll have fishing like they have in Texas and Florida which is nothing compared to what we have

as I understand it the core of engineers dredges the river all the time to maintain shipping lanes and then they take under their their arcane set of regulations they take that spoil I guess is what they call what they dredge up and dump it in the easiest possible place which isn't out in the Gulf of Mexico well what they've done the core has three missions as I say here on the river the first is navigation the second is flood fighting it was only I think maybe in the 70s or 80s that restoration was added to their portfolio so commerce shipping is their first job and that's one of the reasons those levees were built as well is the squeeze the river and keep it going faster so it doesn't silt in as much and it's always silting up so they had these dredge boats and dredge at sand bar up and it is heavy mineral based sand and mud pumped it back into the river

it's water column let the current take it off shore so the state once it got involved in restoration especially down there at the mouth of the river they said hey how about just pumping that stuff over the side there and this sinking basin and they said we're not authorized the way this things work is the core can't do anything unless congress tells it to do something authorizes it to do it now there's been a big debate what do you you guys you can look at that and say but they wouldn't do it because they wanted the extra money from congress to to pump it over the side two years ago we finally got that done the last this big water resource development act bill included ten million dollars for the core to do what we call beneficial dredge so now they're doing that huh and the shipping industry is behind that as well so that's where we are now when this coastal master plans we call it was first introduced in 2007 and by the way it's gotten

basically rave reviews from all over the world in fact it's fair to say this is the most advanced climate science-based climate adaptation plan in the nation and one of the most advanced in the world it was developed not just with Louisiana's they have a lot of great coastal scientists and engineers here but from help from around the world when it was first announced in 2007 the computer said if you get all the money build these projects on time and they work according to what we think they'll work by 2067 will be building more land and aggregate than we're losing hmm so that's you know I was that was a lifeline that was you know this week we we have a chance now the plan is is adaptive management it has to be because everything's changing here right a lot of the big variables obviously subsidence and sea level rise so every five years it's updated

from everything they've learned and it they're creating science and engineering on the fly as I said this has never been done anywhere so the state agency puts all the stuff they've learned back together comes up with a new iteration of the plan five years later puts off a public review and then takes it back to the state legislature for approval and the smartest thing this stage is ever done politically which don't say it I know it's a low low bar the lawmakers can't amend it they can only vote it up or down yeah that is pretty smart and they've they've approved that unanimously each of the three times so in the 2012 plan same thing they said hey you know with made progress you know they are making progress and they're doing different stuff and they said look same thing you know we get all the money build the projects on time why is that important because in the simplest terms the holes we have to fill keep getting deeper and wider by the day we've got finite amount of mud to put in those holes right so if we delay building these projects

then we have to scale back what we can fill and then some of the projects will just have to come off the board because you know we don't have the mud so in 2012 plant A hey we can do all this again we can still by 2067 when we can turn that equation around and then the 2017 plan came out and they said we can't can't make that promise anymore even if we get all the money which is highly unlikely even if all the projects are built on time did it best case scenario we're going to still lose another 1200 square miles by 2067 or case scenario we'll lose 2800 square miles by 2067 even if we get all the money so what's changed in 15 years not the settlement supply

subsidence really hasn't changed that much the money is still an issue which changed and and the plan says it of the sea level rise the projections the worst case projections for sea level rise in a 2012 plan of the best case projections for sea level rise in the 2017 plan so now they're saying everything the best case scenario in the 2017 plan is built around not just getting all the money but the Paris Climate Accords working the worst case scenario is if they're not working so it's all tied now to emissions this is not therefore any longer a Louisiana problem well no we can't solve it without help from the world yeah basically and you know the irony here is that this is a red state most the legislature is

obviously mostly republican they endorse that unanimously the state's official position is the future of its bottom third which by the way isn't just home to a bunch of crazy cages like the hunt fish and get drunk a migra but it's the energy center for much it's half the nation's refining capacity is here 20% of its natural gas supply 90% silks your gas supply anyway that that is in itself a bizarrely paradoxical argument of course because to get to where we have to be per the Paris Climate Accords we have to shut down a huge chunk of that industry petro states are not supportive of the clean power plan I was going to say that even though this is our state's official position is that reducing carbon emissions is the only way we can realistically hope to save much of the bottom third of the state by 2067 we're not talking at the end of the century we're talking 40 years yeah but our congressional delegation which

is GOP except for the one Democrat from New Orleans have been opposed to any carbon regulations in fact Steve Scalise who was the majority whip when the GOP still had the house last year I mean his district which includes where we're sitting I think southeast will be Ziana which has lost more land to crumbling subsidence and is is Noah says is ground zero for the worst case a sea level rise caused by emissions he authored a bill a resolution rather in the house last year co-sponsored by a rep from West Virginia no surprise that the house would oppose any carbon tax in the future the people he's representing their grandchildren likely won't be able to live here and he's against what the states saying is the only strategy for having a future here

which would suggest to a starry idealist like myself that if I were let's say the governor of the great state of Louisiana I would be busting my heiny to build a new renewable energy research and development facility in this state so that it's no longer dependent on one source of energy for both its energy and its revenue you know you would think that if you represented the state the biggest challenge you face here and really threat is what's happening to the bottom third of the state which is basically the economic engine that drives the rest of the state and much of the country and by the way this is you know an economic problem this is a neck it is a considered by many people one of the greatest ongoing environmental disasters in the nation

but it's also this terrible economic crisis rushing towards the rest of the country because no one knows how they're going to help this energy infrastructure survive what's going to happen according to all the scientists in the world and well 97% of them and those in Louisiana wouldn't that in itself be an argument for accelerating in this state renewable energy development and research yeah I mean petro states like well Louisiana is in the worst case Texas most of its oil and gas production is up in a Permian basin you know we put Louisiana pioneered the offshore oil and gas industry back in the 40s we put 4500 rigs off our coast we also drilled 50 thousand oil and gas wells in our coastal zone so that's where the damage has been has been done by oil and gas so you know I have written columns and and reported what I call voting to drown the people in this state continue to re-elect politicians who don't want to pursue

the strategy that will help them survive in on this landscape help this landscape survive down here in the south of Louisiana you know great book on you know you probably talked about it on your show strangers in their own land a wonderful book came out about two three years ago New York Times bestseller by I wish I could remember these names he's a sociologist at Berkeley she's written a couple of other books and she had just finished a book and she was having dinner as a story goes as she says in the book with her son and daughter-in-law and say well what are you gonna do next is well you know I want to go into deepest red America and ask to try to find out why people vote against their own self-interest and daughter-in-law says well mom you ought to come to my hometown Lake Charles will we see that and why well you know it's nothing but all refineries

and chemical refineries and you know it's suffered tremendous pollution and and they keep voting you know for these people who are against any type of regulation and so she goes down there and the Cajun country and of course she doesn't do it a drive-by shooting she goes on and she spends like four years and she falls in love with these people I know some of them in the book I'm sure you've met them and you know they're great folks and and it's like a therapy session she's not looking down her nose at them she she's how does it make you feel and why do you feel that way and how does this make you feel and you get to know these folks like she does and you know my wife couldn't finish the book she was so upset I couldn't put it down because you know it's you know people ask me when I'm speaking about this issue and here in different parts of the country you know why are they doing that why are they voting this way well let people read the book it's really a wonderful

book it's it's on this it's it's centered here in southwest Louisiana a heart of oil and gas country but it applies you know to a lot of places maybe a follow-up on you know what's the amount of Kansas that came out 15 years ago yeah so so you've got this this paradox this this suicide wish if you will and I've gone out and done stories and interviewed people down on the Bayou you know it's a the Cajun villages which people think still exist and and two things I've learned over the last few years really kind of digging into these stories I was down in Cokadry in Terrebonne Parish and on this road you go past places like Chauvinne and Homer and on Bayou Salle and and Bayou Cokadry and all these bayous that are famous and you know there are no Cajun fishing villages anymore most of the fishermen went to work in the oil business

you know become very wealthy driving boats off shore and such and most these little towns are already pretty much deserted because they keep flooding people have moved up up the bayou up down as they say sometimes and I was talking to three people for this documentary I was helping these folks on and you know I said how do you feel about the oil industry oh you know that oil industry you know we need to hear it's given me a chance to my whole family to get out of this you know rut and this one fellow said you know Bob people come down here and and criticize the oil gas industry but they don't realize is they're criticizing us this is all country this is an engaging country this is all country and has been since the 1940s and 50s so there's a big fear and one state rep who who was the head of the coastal agency for a while

this whole plan I've known since he got out of college he was a fisheries biologist and went into management and now he's a state rep and I said why don't you tell these people what's going to happen why don't you you know lead and and he said Bob you know what these people aren't worried about what's gonna might happen in 40 years they're worried about how they're gonna pay next month's mortgage so there's this big fallacy and you hear I've been hearing this since I was so first started writing about wetlands issues probably in the 80s we don't want the oil industry to leave and I'm like where are they gonna go they go where the oil is the oil is here yeah but even more importantly now so are the pipelines so are the refineries they're not gonna recreate that infrastructure trying to get try to get a permit for a refinery anywhere in the country yeah the

pipelines that carry this stuff to the rest of the country are here you know five of of the seven built or planned liquid natural gas ports are here it's all here they can't leave so in in in in terms of just trying to make them behave we've got them over barrel before it was just all the damage they were doing and the state turning a blind eye to it and saying oh we don't want them to go away now we're at the point where we know that carbon emissions from fossil fuels are the major driver for climate change and sea level rise and that is an existential threat to this part of the state and to their infrastructure so yeah and and so this I mean is that a comment against how do we solve this how do we you know we let's let's have a long-range plan of weaning you know not just the nation obviously the state off of

carbon jobs and and re educating our state to do other things and no one's even looking at that they're just saying we're against it it's like the oyster fishermen excuse me and the strippers we're against this because it might hurt us we don't want to look at a different future we're against this yeah just thinking as you're talking about that that country that you visited that unless I'm mistaken the name of that parish terrible and means good earth yeah yes yes terrible and parish yeah that's not much left of it no the critical period for the bottom part of the state will be the next 10 years for this coastal master plan two things have to happen they have to find a permanent funding source within the next 10 years they have a little breathing room now because of the deep water horizon disaster beginning last year they started getting half a billion dollars a year from BP settlements of different kinds it's got to be spent

on the coast it's tied up legally but these these projects can't aren't planned and designed and you know a week there's a there's a long-term they have to be designed engineered they've got to be you know go through computer mockups and everything so it's you know it's a long process 10 years or so so they've got to be pretty sure that they've got money to continue on they've always said that you know they've got to be spending about a billion dollars a year building all these different projects so if they don't have they haven't come up with a permanent funding source say in eight years then by then they've got to start scaling back on the number of projects which means they'll have a smaller coast right because they can do less the other thing is according to the IPCC the Indic governmental panel and climate change several months ago maybe November they said look the

Paris Accords really aren't what they should be the best effort looks like now it was low-balling the world has to reduce emissions 40% in 10 years or be locked into some of the worst and most severe impacts this century and that could sea level rise so the state is looking at this kind of 10-year deadline now you know if Paris works then great that's the big the big mountain decline for for survivability here you know and everything below south and New Orleans anyway and all around like podgeotrain as well but that is sea level rise and getting those emissions down if we're on that trajectory in 10 years to reduce emissions so that temperatures don't rise more than two degrees then all the models indicate that sea level rise would probably less than a meter maybe two feet on average around the world by the end of the century so and if that's the case

their computers right now say we'll you know we'll only lose 1200 square miles which affects the safety of New Orleans in terms of those protective features that they a wooded wetlands offer right well it that we don't have many of those wooded wetlands left and the ones we have left to dying the state took a lot of action after Katrina to buy what was left and the problem is there this was a river basin and the swamp to an river basin and cypress swamps in a river basin there's a dry period at the end of the summer in early fall and that's when cypress seedlings can really root and grow but once you cut off all the distributaries with those levees this big delta begins sinking slowly and so that shortened the dry period and on top of that when we had all these canals dreads that brought saltwater into the northern part of these

estuaries cypress a very intolerant to salinity so part of the master plan is one diversion it's a small one 5,000 cubic feet per second and they've actually got the money for that in their beginning design and engineering to big pipe basically from the river north in New Orleans to put freshwater back into some of these swamps to hold on to them as long as we can if you're into you know fighting an important battle an environmental battle from a scientific engineering landscape architecture something that really matters this is kind of the place to be you know we're states doing some amazing work leave the politicians out of it our politics aside but the CPRA is doing amazing stuff by Marshall great detailed deep reporting and analysis of what we're living through right here right now and I can say from experience although not

recently experienced I'm waiting for the next dose of a fine gumbo maker too oh man you missed a good one I heard I heard tell all right man thank you so much for being with us well thank you for talking about this oh

Well, ladies, gentlemen, that's going to conclude this week's extra special edition of Lesho a lot of talk on this one a lot of music on the next one next week same time on the radio whenever you want it on your other audio device of choice your smart speaker your smart whatever and it be just like not having a smart whatever if you agree to join with me then would you already thank you very much a tip of the Lesho shampoo to Jeffrey Talbot at audio works in New Orleans for engineering today's broadcast and careful attentive listeners will notice that I said this program is originating from both

Santa Monica and New Orleans today the nutty thing is it's true I don't understand it either but I just work here thanks as always to Pam Hallstead and to Thomas Wallshire W.W. N.O. for help with today's show the show comes to you from sent your progress productions that originates to good facilities of W.W. N.O. New Orleans flagship station of the changes easy radio network so long from deep inside your audio device of choice