[StBernard] New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the Oil Industry

[Westley Annis]

New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, and the Oil Industry
By Tim Fitzpatrick
[June 30, 2006]

Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster of epic proportions in the United
States. New Orleans communities were destroyed and lives uprooted as water
came cascading onto the Bayou. Did the damage have to be so devastating?
Some say that the extent of the damage could have been lessened if New
Orleans' natural barriers were not compromised. New Orleans has the cards
stacked against it when it comes to natural disaster defense. For sure, the
number one reason is its peculiar natural geography. However, some say that
oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico played an important role in leaving
the city unprotected. The correct answer may be that it was some combination
of factors that made the devastation of Hurricane Katrina so intense. 

Geology 
Natural landscaping can be considered a city's Achilles' heel when it is
faced with an oncoming hurricane. New Orleans, being below sea level, is a
prime example of that. The city lies at the bottom of a "soup bowl" with the
Mississippi River running right through it. As the river reaches the Gulf of
Mexico, it slows down and creates a fan of sediment or what is commonly
known as a delta. This sediment could have traveled thousands of miles
through 40 of the 48 contiguous states before it eventually dumps into the
Gulf. It is such a huge amount of sediment being transported that the
Earth's crust literally sags underneath it. Every time a sag forms, new
sediment fills the gap. Through millions of years, the Mississippi has
changed course east and west creating six delta lobes, which has formed the
entire coastline of southern Louisiana. Lake Pontchartrain, twice the size
of New Orleans, lies on the lip of the bowl to the north and coastal
wetlands lie to the east, west, and south of the city. Flood control
engineering was designed to hold back spring floods and make New Orleans an
important port city for oil exploration and transportation. This man-made
flood control concept contributed to the disappearance of coastal wetlands.
Since silt and nutrients, the bread and butter for marshland growth, were
unable to be replenished, the existing land sunk and the wetlands turned to
open water. A natural sponge for soaking up the floodwaters and protecting
New Orleans against hurricanes had disappeared. 

Fast Fact 
Louisiana is the hardest working wetlands in America. It produces or
transports more than a third of the nation's oil and a quarter of its
natural gas. It is also an important commercial fishing area falling only
behind Alaska. 1.1 billion kg of fish and shellfish (around 40% of the
United States supply) comes from the Gulf. 

History 
The French founded New Orleans in the early 1700s. As the population grew in
New Orleans, the swamps and marshlands were drained and turned into
habitable land. Seeing no inherent value in the swampy areas, other than the
harvesting of the bald cypress forests, early settlers drained the
marshlands to control mosquito-borne diseases. In the 1930s, after a flood
protection barrier was in place, the city could now extend its streets to
the shores of Lake Pontchartrain. The once soggy floodplains could now be
inhabited and turned into farms to meet the needs of an expanding urban
population. As the wetlands were drained, however, the moisture rich peat
soils began to dry out and sink, eventually bringing New Orleans below sea
level. It also brought the city below the level of Lake Pontchartrain
resulting in catastrophe when Katrina's rains hit and the lake spilled over.


Oil and Louisiana 
Oil production in Louisiana began in 1902 and peaked at 1970. This industry
has had profound impacts on the essential plants of the Mississippi delta.
For vegetation to have high productivity, it needs natural and regular flow
of sediment. Levees and canals have diverted this flow. As a result, a
phenomenon known as depressurization has lead to subsidence, a fancy word
for sinking. In other words, the delta is analogous to a glass with soda pop
in it and a drinking straw is similar to an oil-drilling pipe. Suck on the
straw and your soda pop or your oil comes to the surface. However, when that
happens, the level of the liquid drops as the pressure underneath is
lessened. As oil is pumped from the ground, New Orleans is sinking.
Subsidence in the Mississippi Delta is thought to be around 10mm per year.
Depressurization can go hand in hand with sediment build up. The levees have
stunted sediment build up, which could offset depressurization. 

Massive Wetlands Death from the inside out 
The inner wetland areas lie at a lower elevation than the coastal areas and
are essentially starved of nutrients and then inundated by tides. Constantly
submerged, coastal wetlands, freshwater swamps, and bald cypress forests
start to die off. The pattern starts from the center and continues moving
outwards to the gulf. Some geologists believe that if the trend continues,
New Orleans would be exposed to worse damage from hurricanes as more of the
city is exposed to open water making a virtual hurricane highway. Oil and
gas facilities and a valuable fishing industry, which contain nurseries for
shrimp, blue crab, oysters, and redfish, would all be at serious risk if
that were to happen. 

Fast Fact 
In the 20th century, 4000 square kilometers of wetlands have been lost due
to the construction of flood control levees. 

A lawsuit against the oil companies 
Legal action has been taken against a number of oil companies for damage to
wetlands. They claim that had the wetlands not been compromised, the impact
of Hurricane Katrina would not have been so severe. Oil and gas canals have
long been blamed for allowing salt water into the marshlands and eroding the
land. Oil companies argue that a hurricane the size of Katrina would have
done just as much damage even if the wetlands were healthy. In November of
2005, the National Academies released a report, Drawing Louisiana's New Map:
Addressing Land Loss in Coastal Louisiana. In it, the report states that two
factors were involved in the flooding of New Orleans, one being the man-made
levees and another being a non-native invasive species called Nutria, which
grazed on marshland vegetation. The report also states that the 10 canals
currently in Louisiana have drowned wetlands and allowed saltwater
intrusions into freshwater ecosystems. An older shipping canal was thought
to have served as a funnel for Katrina's rage. Researchers are suggesting a
rejuvenation of the wetlands and barrier islands to protect against the next
hurricane. 

Reclaiming Wetlands Without Losing an Economy 
Oil is important to the New Orleans economy and so are the wetlands. What
are the options to serve both? The first order of business seems to be to
fix the levies. Without the levees, right now, New Orleans would be
inhabitable. However, as we have seen, just fixing the levees clearly is not
the answer. Researchers are talking about replacing the silt to the wetlands
in a controlled manner eliminating the need to flood the whole area.
Periodic flooding through a control such as a dam could help bring back the
wetlands. The new sediments dumped by this method should offset the sinking
of New Orleans. If this is done, or at least started, maybe the next
hurricane would hiccup on one of the barrier islands and wetlands instead of
unleashing its fury on the residents of New Orleans again.