Louisiana, Sinking Fast, Prepares to Empty Out Its Coastal Plain

By Pakalolo 
Thursday Dec 28, 2017 · 8:40 AM EST

A state map shows areas of southern Louisiana at the greatest risk of flooding.

“I’m almost forty. Do I want to start a whole new chapter in my life? Where do you want me to go?” Opie Griffin resident of Leeville, Lousisiana.

The sea is coming in, and Louisiana is finalizing a plan to evacuate up to 59,000 people from a coastal plain larger than the State of Delaware. Bloomberg News notes that the plan effectively declares that southern Louisiana is uninhabitable.

Christopher Flavelle writes:

A draft of the plan, the most aggressive response to climate-linked flooding in the U.S., calls for prohibitions on building new homes in high-risk areas, buyouts of homeowners who live there now and hikes in taxes on those who won’t leave. Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings’ eventual demolition.

The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, a Native American tribe living in the Louisiana coastal wetlands, has lost some 98 percent of its land since the 1950s. In Alaska, villages along the Chukchi Sea will also need to be evacuated soon due to rising seas. Alaskan and Louisiana’s Senators all voted to open the Arctic National Refuge to oil drilling. Fossil fuels are responsible for dramatic climatic changes around the planet.

Flavelle continues:

The draft plan, a portion of which was obtained by Bloomberg News, is part of a state initiative funded by the federal government to help Louisiana plan for the effects of coastal erosion. That erosion is happening faster in Louisiana than anywhere in the U.S., due to a mix of rising seas and sinking land caused in part by oil and gas extraction. State officials say they hope the program, called Louisiana Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments, or LA SAFE, becomes a model for coastal areas around the country and the world threatened by climate change.

Bloomberg notes there is a possibility of backlash, and it is hard to predict whether the recommendations will ever take effect.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/28/1728126/-Louisiana-Sinking-Fast-Prepares-to-Empty-Out-Its-Coastal-Plain?detail=facebook