A provocative study by Tulane researchers hit The Guardian last month with a viral headline characterizing New Orleans at the “Point of no Return” for sea-level rise, calling for imminent relocation.
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, was predictably shared by news outlets across the world. Those who study environmental issues in Louisiana knew this report would come.
South Louisiana is often called the canary in the coal mine for global warming. It is also a bellwether for difficult discussions about community response.
We know New Orleans’ population is shrinking, but that doesn’t mean that it deserves to shrink more. Watching the city recover after Katrina was a lesson in sheer determination and a reminder that families and longtime neighbors who returned to rebuild a flooded city — “because it’s home” — are unlikely candidates for relocation.
We’d prefer to try and fix it.
Since its inception, New Orleans has been enmeshed in environmental precarity. The same Mississippi River levees and drainage that allowed the city to expand also degraded its surrounding marshland. Plus, a century of offshore drilling, oil spills, pipeline canals, and subsidence from coastal wells have left South Louisiana among the world’s most vulnerable places to sea-level rise.
The Tulane study urges the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to restart its tabled the multi-billion dollar Mississippi River sediment diversions at Breton Sound and Barataria, mainly to stave off the inevitable. But it warned that waiting too long would create a “socioecological trap.”
At the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions and sea-level rise, Louisiana’s coastline will spread as far north as Ponchatoula, and possibly beyond, as calculated by the Tulane researchers, who suggest that because of South Louisiana’s outmigration, set in motion 20 years ago by Katrina and Rita, the region has a headstart toward planned relocation.
We’ve already witnessed problems of planned relocation in Louisiana with the indigenous island of Jean Charles. A $48 million federal relocation grant awarded in 2016 has led to broken promises, shattered alliances, and regrets of moving.
What if we instead changed the equation and made the communities of South Louisiana and New Orleans too prosperous to move?
Tale of Two Cities
I don’t take issue with the science, but rather some of the social-policy assumptions built into the recommendation. Not only does the study assume that global greenhouse gas emissions will continue on their current trajectory, but it also assumes that a region in decline has less to lose than one that is flourishing.
The authors contrasted South Louisiana with Coastal Florida, two vulnerable areas that have weathered destructive storms. South Florida’s population is growing, while Louisiana and New Orleans are shrinking.
But there’s really no reason South Louisiana couldn’t pivot towards Coastal Florida, which the authors note is benefitting from “aggressive development promotion, comparatively strong fiscal capacity, and amenity-driven preferences.”
Or take Houston, the fifth largest metropolitan region, which is sinking. Are we going to relocate Houston?
By contrast, Louisiana’s outmigration is fueled by failed social policies and economic stress, which the authors say is “defined by dependence on declining extractive industries” and “strained fiscal resources for adaptation and post-disaster recovery.”
“What if we instead
changed the equation
and made the communities
of South Louisiana and New Orleans
too prosperous to move?”
Our schools are underfunded, our insurance is unaffordable, our wages poor, and our tax burden disproportionately penalizes working families rather than extractive industries.
Coastal Restoration
What if Louisiana liberated itself from its industrial past and unleashed every available tool to rebuild its coast, including those resisted by oil and gas companies?
Beyond sediment diversions, Louisiana could enforce its existing law requiring oil and gas companies to refill the thousands of miles of abandoned pipeline canals that slice up the coast and accelerate erosion; and force oil companies to plug an estimated 25,000 idled and abandoned wells wreaking havoc on the marsh.
California requires oil companies to repressurize depleted wells to reverse subsidence. Why not Louisiana?
Community Investment
What if the state fully funded a fortified roof program to insure all homes within the coastal zone?
Let’s prioritize families by forcing petrochemical companies to install fenceline monitors for toxic air pollution. We could invest more in public education and better wages. Louisiana is one of five states not to have a minimum wage.
Where would the money come from, you ask? From the very companies responsible for the damage. In addition to enforcing existing laws, we could end property tax exemptions worth billions of dollars for petrochemical and liquid natural gas (LNG) plants and roll back severance tax exemptions and other subsidies for oil and gas.
That would lower the tax burden on residents and generate over $1- $2 billion annually.
Throughout this last legislative session, lawmakers continued appeasing fossil fuel companies. They protected oil and gas companies from climate-change lawsuits, killed a reasonable air-monitoring proposal, and lowered state royalty collections when oil and gas prices fall.
They protected aerospace companies from lawsuits and exempted their sales and property taxes. That’s in addition to existing tax exemptions for largely automated data centers and the proposed natural gas plants to power them.
The Tulane study was indeed a clarion call – but for reform. Instead of putting the onus on residents to relocate, a less disruptive path is holding industry accountable and standing up vulnerable communities.
