Protected areas and biodiversity
There are many different types of protected areas, both national and state-owned. These include Poverty Point World Heritage Site (UNESCO), home to one of the country's largest archaeological sites, Cane River Creole National Historical Park and Heritage Area, which preserves historic plantations, and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Reserve, made up of six different sites (including a visitor center in the French Quarter of New Orleans), which aims to protect natural and cultural sites that bear witness to the uniqueness of Louisiana.
Bayous are ancient branches of the Mississippi River, which, within vast areas of freshwater, are home to complex, fragile ecosystems associated with exceptional biodiversity, including emblematic species such as bald cypress, alligators and birds. However, these unique environments are threatened by human activities (including agriculture and industry), hurricanes and extreme events linked to climate change. According to an American research institute, Louisiana (known as the "Bayou State") loses the equivalent surface area of a soccer field every hour.
Threats from the industry
The oil industry generates multiple environmental and health impacts. The 4,000 boreholes and 15,000 km of canals dug into the bayous have displaced large quantities of sediment, inducing soil subsidence and disrupting the ecosystems that act as natural barriers. Added to this are chronic and accidental industrial pollution. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in 2010 was one of the country's most serious oil spills and environmental disasters. The lack of sediment from dams and the effects of climate change, with violent storms such as storm Ida in August 2021, are also contributing to the disappearance and degradation of natural environments.
"Cancer Alley
With 25% of the state's petrochemical industries, Louisiana is the fourth largest producer of crude oil in the United States. The majority of these plants are concentrated along a 140 km stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, generating not only acute pollution, but also chronic contamination. Poor, mostly African-American residents living around the factories along the Mississippi River are the most exposed to this deleterious environment. The risk of cancer is more than 50 times higher than the national average, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The Bayou Corne sinkhole
Not far from Cancer Alley, in Bayou Corne, lies asinkhole. This is a circular depression formed by the collapse of a well formerly used for brine extraction, which leaked methane, other toxic gases and hydrocarbons that contaminated the water table and forced the displacement of a large part of the local population in 2012.
Facing climate change
In Louisiana, climate change is reflected in accelerated coastal erosion (rising sea levels) and more frequent and intense extreme events, such as hurricanes Katrina in 2005 and Ida in 2021. Perhaps the most telling illustration of climate change is Isle de Jean-Charles, which has lost almost 98% of its territory in less than 70 years. Excluded from the dam protection perimeter (see below), the island is set to disappear completely under water within 50 years, and its inhabitants, climate refugees, are being relocated elsewhere.
August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina
The hurricane, which swept across southern Louisiana, flooded more than 80% of New Orleans, where salt water stagnated for weeks. When Hurricane Rita arrived a few weeks later, the neighborhoods were flooded again, as the levee consolidation work had not been completed. Part of Katrina's tragedy lies in the fact that such a catastrophe was foreseeable: geographical location, obsolete levee protection system, recent storms passed very close by. The oldest neighborhoods, built on land above sea level (French Quarter, Faubourg Marigny, Bywater, part of Uptown), were not flooded, unlike the more recent or poorer neighborhoods, located between one and two meters below sea level and resulting from the draining of swamps and flooded land, which were the hardest hit (Gentilly, Lakeview, New Orleans East). As mentioned above, marshes are natural defenses against flooding. In the 19th century, an earthen levee was built just high enough to hold back some of the Mississippi's floodwaters. A drainage system was then put in place. This did not prevent New Orleans from being flooded in 1927, and again in 1965. Congress reacted by asking the government agency, The Army Corps of Engineers, to be responsible for flood control and, consequently, for building levees all along the Mississippi Valley. Short of funds, the agency changed the plans, but completed the construction anyway. Unfortunately, on August 29 2005, part of the levee broke and flooded three-quarters of the city. On June1, 2006, the agency acknowledged its responsibility, noting the damage and, above all, the number of deaths. by 2006, 523 km of levees had been repaired and the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) created. The $15 billion project was completed in June 2011. The Army Corps of Engineers built the world's largest drainage station. President George W. Bush's inertia in the early post-Katrina days has been widely criticized, as have the after-effects of this belated action (people without food, water or shelter, deaths from dehydration, fatigue and scenes of looting). However, the determination to rebuild and the courage of the people of New Orleans were universally applauded. The Lower Ninth Ward, the poorest and most devastated neighborhood in the city, which was the focus of Brad Pitt's Make it right foundation, has still not regained its former glory.
