Posted on 01/04/2008 1:28:00 PM PST by blam
Louisiana’s Wetlands Are Being Lost At The Rate Of One Football Field Every 38 Minutes
ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2008) — LSU and Ohio State University will battle for the BCS National College Football Championship in the Superdome early next week, but if the game was held in the Louisiana wetlands instead, the entire field would disappear before halftime.
Louisiana’s wetlands are being lost at the rate of approximately one football field every 38 minutes. To fight against this rapid destruction, the two universities joined forces in 2003, forming an ongoing research partnership with the goal of rebuilding the vanishing coastal wetland ecosystem that makes up 30 percent of the nation’s total coastal marsh.
Researchers also aim to reduce the flow of nitrogen and other chemicals that pour into the Mississippi River each spring from America’s heartland. This causes an overabundance of nutrients that rob the water of oxygen, creating a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico – more than 975 square miles of low-oxygen water that limits the sustainable fisheries of the region.
“This is a multi-billion-dollar problem that affects our entire nation,” said LSU Chancellor Sean O’Keefe. “While we battle on the football field, we collaborate in the research field to tackle the issue of coastal wetlands loss.”
Louisiana’s wetlands help to make the state the nation’s leader in crude oil production and second in natural gas production, according to America’s Wetland Foundation. These fragile ecosystems also support 25 percent of the nation’s total commercial fishing haul and provide storm protection to five of the country’s largest ports. Wetlands are essential because of their capability to filter the nutrients that would contribute to the dead zone before they get carried into the Gulf; they’re also vital for hurricane protection in storm-sensitive areas like New Orleans.
“Louisiana has both the largest amount of wetland loss and the largest dead zone in the country,” said Robert Twilley, associate vice chancellor of research and economic development at LSU, director of the Coastal Systems and Society Agenda, professor of coastal sciences and leader of the Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory, or CEML. “We’re working hard to rebuild our wetlands and reduce nutrients to the Gulf of Mexico, but we can’t do it alone.”
That’s where OSU comes in.
While LSU scientists focus on Louisiana, addressing the issues of dramatic wetland loss and the continuously growing dead zone, OSU researchers are developing wetlands upstream so that nutrient loads in the Mississippi that would increase the size of the dead zone will be dramatically reduced by the time they reach the delta region.
Adapted from materials provided by Louisiana State University.
Actually the wetlands a.k.a. swamps slow down the hurricanes, so losing wetlands does not equate to less damage from hurricanes. Just the opposite is true.
Exactly!
Absolutely correct, both of you. If the Mississippi had been allowed to do what it wanted to, it would have cut a new channel many years ago pretty much south from Baton Rouge rather than southeast through NO where it is now and NO would be left out. Sounds like a good idea to me.
The Army Corps of Engineers has caused more expensive misery than probably any other part of the government. There’s probably no telling how many billions of dollars have been dumped into that outfit to try to dick with mother nature. It’s a boondoggle of the highest magnitude.
Because after their great floods the Dutch had the sense to create concentric rings of wet agriculture to act as barriers against it happening again so that their country, reclaimed from the sea at the outset, would be safer and larger. Had this been done before the disaster could have been avoided. But there was no match for the corruption. One of the oddest things is that Tulane, instead of looking at what needs to be done and getting funds to lead in doing it, decided to close its engineering school. ?????? Where do we get these so-called leaders of universities?
isnt N.O. considered a wetlands now?
These non-standard units of measurement always bug me.
Unless I’ve dropped a decimal or two someplace, this works out to about 28 square miles/year.
The area of the state of Louisiana is 51,843 square miles.
I figure the state will be completely gone in the year 3873.
37.89 ‘football fields’ of wetlands gone every day? Can somebody do the math to figure up how long it will take before Louisiana is all non-wetland? How long has this been going on? A few days? A year? Sounds like a load of junk science to me. Mr. Stossel, pick up the courtesy phone...Mr. Stossel.
Ok, that was hilarious.
38 x 60 = 2280
football field is 360 x 160 = Area of 57600
57600 / 2280 = 25.26 square feet per second
Bar size pool table is 3.5 x 7 or area of 25.9(close enough)
Louisiana’s Wetlands Are Being Lost At The Rate Of One BAR SIZE POOL TABLE every second!
The Army Corps of Engineers puts the loss at 22,000 acres/year which is close to the football fields figure; their report of 2004 states that 30% is natural and 70% by mankind’s “activities” (undescribed).
Did they check William Jefferson's freezer? Maybe they are in there...
Do you know the difference between a "wetland" and a "swamp"?
6
5
4
3
2
1
No one will give you money to save a Swamp!
The wetlands aren’t disappearing, they’re just relocating.
“The Army Corps of Engineers has caused more expensive misery than probably any other part of the government.”
If you look at the history of the Corps projects on the Mississippi they have been batting close to 0. Tulane made a financial decision on Engineering, they were not in the top tier of schools. Engineering studies interfere with the Gentlemen’s B and partying.
You wouldn't believe the rain we're getting right this moment.
Interesting, the misconceptions many have,mainly of
N.O. post-katrina.
Spent a year in Gulfport,MS
in recovery operations. My territory was Mobile, AL
to Venice,LA
Mainstream media focus was N.O.,IGNORING the truly
hard hit areas! Hope no Freeper ever has to see any
thing like the devastion Katrina brought!The purported
loss of wetland changes every year!Lived in Thibodeaux
many moons ago!
N o F
In other news, 87% of all statistics - particularly specious ones like this - are made up on the spot.
My point is that, confronted with a unique opportunity to become tops in an area of extreme importance to the local economy they threw it away.
Years ago a man I knew who had been in the corps for many years and who then became a large-scale contractor told me about a guy in the Corps who way back began to show that by moving earth and sand around as the Dutch do and not doing so much concretizing and channeling, the Corps could achieve much in the way of what was needed to avoid something like Katrina and do things less expensively. He found he was more and more being isolated and eventually was driven to retire.
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