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Jewish World Review June 17, 2005 / 10 Sivan, 5765 Only with prudent actions will the Mississippi Delta be saved By Froma Harrop
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Louisiana is famous for — how shall we put it? — its colorful
politics. And so Sen. David Vitter got an easy laugh from Washington with
the quip, "In Louisiana, we're half under water and half under indictment."
At a hearing on the Water Resources Development Act, the Louisiana
Republican added, "In this bill, we're beginning to address at least one of
those issues."
Only one? American taxpayers are not so sure. The Senate bill
raises to $1.2 billion their share of a project to preserve land in coastal
Louisiana. This would be the first installment of a grand plan to restore
the Mississippi Delta. Experts put the total cost at a minimum of $15
billion.
But then Vitter slipped in a last-minute provision that would
endanger hundreds of thousands of forested wetland acres in Louisiana alone.
It would ease the way for timber companies to cut down majestic cypress
trees — part of the very ecosystem taxpayers are being asked to save — and
turn them into cheap garden mulch.
The Mississippi Delta happens to be one of America's great
natural wonders, right up there with the Grand Canyon, the Everglades and
Chesapeake Bay. It represents 40 percent of the coastal wetlands in the
contiguous United States.
But the question arises: Why spend billions fixing a resource
that Louisiana politicians are busy wrecking? If inserting the Vitter
provision into the water-project bill doesn't amount to an indictable
offense, it certainly puts American taxpayers in a bad mood.
The amendment basically guts a key section of the 1899 Rivers
and Harbors Act. That section lets the Army Corps of Engineers regulate
activities in navigable waters that might destroy wetlands, harm water
quality or damage wildlife habitat. The Vitter provision ends those
environmental protections when they apply to private property.
The Mississippi Delta is in dreadful shape. "The coastline is
literally breaking up," says David Conrad, water-resources specialist for
the National Wildlife Federation. "What was land is now little patches of
dying vegetation."
The delta was always sinking, but the nourishing river kept the
wetlands going. Then came the levees. Built for flood control, the levees
cut the river off from the delta, with devastating consequences for
marshlands. Oil and gas drilling made matters worse.
Strange but true, the Louisiana state Senate has just passed a
resolution backing the Vitter provision. It calls on Congress to tell the
Army Corps to stop picking on its forestry industry, which engages in
"sustainable forestry practices."
The resolution flabbergasts John Day, professor of oceanography
and coastal sciences at Louisiana State University. The cypress forests have
endured, he explains, only because these trees are willing to stand in
water. But their seedlings need fairly dry conditions to survive. The forest
has sunk to the point where the cypresses cannot regenerate. Cut down the
trees, some 100 years old, and the forest is gone.
If Louisiana's politicians want to help the forest industry,
they have other ways to do it. For example, they could set up a system to
compensate timber companies for trees they can't chop down.
Vitter provision aside, the whole porked-up Water Resources
Development Act deserves a cold eye. The $17 billion bill finds ingenious
ways to waste taxpayer money and destroy the environment at the same time.
With budget deficits raging, the taxpayers are going to be
rather grumpy about cleaning up environmental messes that the locals make
worse. Many in Louisiana are mindful of the PR dilemma.
As Day put it, "If we want to restore the Mississippi River, we
in Louisiana have to show that we're going to be wise stewards of our land."
Should American taxpayers want to save the Mississippi Delta?
Sure, even if it costs a bundle. But if they're just throwing good
environmental money after bad, then forget about it.
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© 2005 Creators Syndicate |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
