Sometimes you’re doing some online research and you come across something that makes you shake your head in wonder. Today, I found this in a search for something else- a headline from the June 12, 1910 issue of the New York Times.
NEW ORLEANS’S PLANS FOR GREAT SUBURBS; Over a Million Acres of Marsh-l… – Article Preview – The New York Times via kwout
Considering what we now know about the protective effect of wetlands from storm surges,
it is just tragic that this destruction of wetlands was once seen as “progress.” According to NOAA :
Low lying coastal areas in and around the Gulf Coast have always been susceptible to storm surge from hurricanes, but the situation has worsened over time as protective coastal wetlands have disappeared due to land subsidence and human intervention.
While our culture is finally coming around and realizing how valuable wetlands are for coastal protection, as wildlife nurseries, and as natural water filtration systems, there are plenty of companies still fighting to remove the few we have left. A quick Google News search found conflicts in Plympton, Mass., and San Francisco, CA., and a million-dollar amelioration plan for a development that was built on a floodplain in Port Huron, MI.
More than half of wetlands have been eliminated since Europeans colonized the United States, according to the Audubon Society. 90% of California’s wetlands have been drained, while about half of Florida’s (a state that is naturally about 30% wetland) have been. This is one of those issues that often comes down to local land-use planning, so one way to make a big difference with this problem is to get involved in your community planning board.
Having grown up in New Orleans, and lived there more then half my life – this is a subject which always gets me going. The areas of New Orleans which were destroyed by the storm were originally wetlands, and were not somewhere you would want to live unless you had one of the cajun swamp houses that actually do float. When i saw that Brad Pitt was re-building houses in the 9th ward area of new Orleans I was totally baffled by his choice of location to build sustainable housing. The reason this land flooded and was poverty stricken is because the land was not suitable for building in the first place (poor people couldn’t afford to build anywhere else). To re-build sustainable (or otherwise) housing where the area is destine to be flooded over and over again defeats the purpose of eco-housing. These are areas that have nearly no drainage and can not handle even a common thunderstorm without flooding, because it is swampland. They built the levees to keep the natural drainage/ebb & flow of the Mississippi River and the Lake from creeping into those now suburbanized areas…which is/was a disaster waiting to happen.
I find it interesting in 1910 that they were describing it almost like some future paradise for the wealthy, when it was always from the start nothing more then a dangerous place to shove the poor away from town.
Unless those new eco houses have a boat motor on the back, and can float – their sustainable future may be quite short… no matter how high of stilts they build them on.
04/24/08 » 3:07 pm »
your mom!
09/26/08 » 7:35 am »