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A Daytrip To Grand Isle
Somewhere around day 50, I had hit my wall. I couldn’t spend another moment glued to my couch watching that broken pipe spew it’s uninterrupted flow of oil somewhere at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, listening to crude explanations of wacky backyard science experiments with names like “junk shot” and “top hat”. I needed to get out my apartment, get out of New Orleans, and drive down to the coast and lay eyes on this thing for myself.
I called my friend Susan, who had been to the coast a couple weeks prior to do some volunteer work with a local coastal restoration non-profit. The thing about the coast of southeast Louisiana is that the majority of it is not a conventional beach line. You can’t just drive towards the Gulf, park your car and jump in the water in too many places. Much of the landmass that exists between New Orleans and the Gulf is wetlands, only accessible by boat. The leak site is somewhere off the coast of Venice, a tiny fishing community notable for being the last town on the Mississippi River accessible by car. Venice was nearly wiped off the map during Katrina, and must now be the point of first impact for yet another offshore disaster. Venice is about two hours southeast of New Orleans, a beautiful scenic drive that I am familiar with. However Susan explains that there isn’t much too see down in Venice. Some boats come and go from the docks, carrying clean-up crew and news media, and several networks have vans with satellites set-up by the little café, but the actual clean-up efforts are taking place out on the barrier islands and wetlands that surround the town. Susan then suggests that we check out Grand Isle, as it has a more conventional beach line and therefore will most likely give us a better sense of the clean-up efforts.
Grand Isle is only 30 or 40 miles west of Venice by boat, and is actually closer to the city than Venice as the crow flies. However the route by car hooks pretty far west before winding its’ way back south to the narrow coastal fishing isle. Pre-Katrina my wife and I would occasionally take the two and a half hour drive, to lie out on the beach for a weekend. In terms of beach access from New Orleans you’ve got a choice between the Mississippi coast and Grand Isle. Mississippi is closer and an easier drive, but I prefer the honky-tonk vibe of the Isle to the Casino speckled shores of Mississippi. I had only been down to Grand Isle once since the stormy summer of 2005 and that was on a location-scouting trip just a few months after the hurricanes. At that time Grand Isle was still pretty much in a state of decimation.
The drive to Grand Isle is interesting and illustrates many of the ecological and economic challenges that the state of Louisiana currently faces. The area between the city and the island consists of a complex system of swamp, lakes, bayou and marsh collectively called wetlands. The wetlands of south Louisiana are home to 1,000’s of species of animals, birds and fish. Every year more than five million waterfowl migrate to this lush estuary, for breeding and nursery purposes.
In the wake of hurricane Katrina the people of New Orleans were educated on another important service these wetlands provide, as the wetlands act as the cities primary protection and defense against Gulf hurricanes. Storms form and build in intensity over the warm waters of the Gulf. When they approach the Louisiana coast they make landfall over a series of barrier islands and wetlands. The more time the storm spends traveling over land, the slower and less intense it becomes. Therefore the more wetlands we have surrounding New Orleans, the safer the city is from hurricanes. All the levees in the world mean very little without that natural barrier to take the initial wallop of a storm making landfall. The problem is we don’t have as much wetlands as we used to. Louisiana loses an acre of wetlands every 38 minutes, which is equal to roughly 40 square miles per year. Since 1932 Louisiana has lost a landmass equivalent to the size of Delaware. Coastal erosion is a problem in other places around the world, but the dilemma is amplified here in Louisiana. According to the US Geological Survey, Louisiana is home to 40% of the nation’s wetlands, however in the last ten years we have accounted for 90% of the countries total coastal loss. The USGS predicts that by 2040, Louisiana will have lost another 800,000 acres of wetlands and that the coastline will have regressed as much as 33 miles in some places, and these were predictions made before the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The cause of the hyper-accelerated erosion of the Louisiana coastline becomes quite evident on the drive between New Orleans and Grand Isle. Leaving New Orleans on I-10 West, Susan and I quickly cross into Jefferson Parish. The bulk of Jefferson Parish was wetlands as late as the 1930’s. It was around this time that technologies were developed and implemented for the draining and commercial development of wetlands. New Orleans pushed back Lake Pontchartrain to the north and dried out the swamp land to the east. Jefferson Parish followed suit and began draining land at a phenomenal pace. They sold the land cheap and unregulated, for business, industry and residences. Between 1940 and 1950 the population of Jefferson Parish doubled, then between 1950 and 1960 it doubled itself again. Today Jefferson Parish has more people living in it than the city of New Orleans.
Leaving Jefferson Parish, we head south on 310. The change from sprawling suburb to empty wetland is immediate crossing the parish line and floodwall. This piece of wetland is known as the Bonnet Carre Spillway, and it acts as a flood diversion space for the Mississippi River. The diversion space is maintained by the Army Corps of engineers, but has many Shell pipe-lines with little dirt access roads running through the interior. On the eastern ridge of the river the Shell Chemical Plant and Norco refinery can be seen in the distance. Crossing the river on a high suspension bridge you really get a handle on just how massive the Shell Norco facility is. It looks more like an industrial city than a plant. If you drive up or down river from New Orleans you’ll undoubtedly run into similar refining and chemical cities every five or ten miles spewing smoke into the horizon, leading to the region’s nickname “Cancer Alley”.
Once across the river, we head southwest on highway 90 through some more former wetlands converted to suburbs. We drive through towns that were once Cajun villages accessible only by boat. While New Orleans and Jefferson Parish were draining their marshlands, populist governor Huey Long was aggressively expanding infrastructure to the floating towns of the bayou. By doing this he was creating a previously nonexistent electorate that would loyally support him when he went up against the old money interests of New Orleans that had historically controlled the state, and he was also providing access to the bayou for a bourgeoning oil industry. The extension of this infrastructure was important and ushered huge segments of the population into the 20th century. However, expansion happened without regard for natural resources other than oil. After the roads and electricity came the subdivisions and industrial ports, which required drainage canals and levees to protect these investments from the flood-waters and tropical storms. As ships became bigger in size and port facilities began to spread out further and further from the city, massive shipping canals were carved out of the wetlands. What was once vast and uninterrupted became parceled and separated. Today the former wetlands are home to over 55,000 jobs in fishing, shipping and oil.
Once we reach Raceland, we exit the highway and get on route 1. Route 1 snakes south along a narrow peninsula bordered by waterways with Cajun names like Bayou Periot, Lake Salvador, Catahoula Bay, Bay L’Ours, Turtle Bay, Bay Jaque, Lake Laurier and Catfish Lake. Traffic starts and stops in little fishing towns to wait for draw bridges to raise and lower as ships make their way up and down the shipping canals. One can’t help but stare out the window and notice that the areas appearing to be land in the road atlas, looks more like water in reality. Off in the distance construction crews work on a major freeway that will allow for traffic to drive down the peninsula without the nuisance of drawbridges and traffic lights.
As we reach the end of the narrow peninsula we reach Port Fouchon, Louisiana’s southern most port and the reason for the massive highway project through the wetlands. Port Fouchon is an enormous shipyard, where companies like Haliburton, Monsanto, & Bollinger have set up large-scale operations. There are 600 oil platforms within a 40-mile radius of this port, which services 90% of the oil operations in the Gulf. It is estimated that 16-18 % of all the oil in the US comes through this port. The highway will allow industry to move quicker and allows for more efficient hurricane evacuation. Never mind the fact that the mere construction of such infrastructure puts other parts of the region at greater risk of hurricane damage. These are the politics and economics that have been driving Louisiana for a century.
At the eastern tip of Port Fouchon we cross a tiny bridge and have arrived in the sleepy fishing town of Grand Isle. Route 1 runs the length of the long skinny island and is lined on both sides with colorful fishing cabins on sixteen-foot stilts. Bridge Side Marina is on the west end of the island, a recreational boat launching site that also rents beachfront cabins. It appears to be a popular spot for network news crews to set-up their base-camps. Susan and I decide to head to the east side of the island, Grand Isle State Park. We don’t have to drive far before we notice that there’s no one in town except the news crews and the very small population of year round locals. Most of these cabins are fishing and vacationing spots. The beaches are closed and the fishing in this region has been shut down in the wake of the disaster. Grand Isle is dead.
As we approach the state park Susan spots a homemade sign on the side of the road that says “Caution Walrus Crossing”, poking fun at the boiler plate clean-up plans submitted by BP and other deepwater drillers. At least the people of Grand Isle have maintained their sense of humor through all of this.
The parking lot at the state park has been turned into some sort of operations center for the clean-up crews on the island, so we park in a dirt patch off to the side of the road. Although beach access is closed off to the public, we are able to get up on the boardwalk that extends a couple hundred feet out into the water and from here we can see the entire southern coast of the island.
The beach looks pretty clean of oil. We don’t see any large globs, like the ones showing up on the news. A line of boom stretches the length of the beach. It’s low tide so the boom rests in the sand. Pop-up tents are scattered, providing shade for the kiddy pools being used as washing stations. The heat is intense and stifling. Being out of the air-conditioned car for twenty minutes is draining and I begin to feel bad for the emergency clean-up workers wearing all of the protective gear. They seem to break frequently, to sit in the shade and drink water.
Out on the water Susan spots a couple of dolphins swimming around inside of the jetties. Beyond a team of barges and shrimping boats appear to be maintaining another line of boom while deep in the horizon I can spot the plumes of smoke drifting upward from the burn-off sites some 40 miles off the coast.
We give ourselves some time to take the whole scene in, try to contemplate the future for Grand Isle and all the wetlands to the north. It’s all so strikingly quiet. When I think disaster, I think noise and pandemonium, not sweeping sand in silence, with water breaks every 20 minutes. Maybe that’s part of what’s frustrating me. After Katrina I could pick up a hammer and start fixing things. This time around there’s nothing to do but sit and watch it unfold. It’s slow and agonizing.
We head back to the car and decide to check out one of the little cafés along the main drag. We go with Sarah’s on the advice of a photographer we met on the beach. There’s a news van outside of the place, but it’s not a network emblem I immediately recognize. As we approach the restaurant we are welcomed by a few guys sitting on the porch who don’t look like local fishermen. They ask us where we’ve come from and when we tell them New Orleans, they seem surprised. I try to explain how I was driving myself mad watching the news coverage and have developed this strong desire to see it with my own eyes. The strangers explain that they are a news crew with Al Jazeera. They have an interview spot set-up inside the café, but with town as empty as it is, have found a hard time getting interviewees. I happily agree to be interviewed while Susan orders us some drinks. Who would have thought I’d ever be getting interviewed by Al Jazeera in a ghost-town like fishing community at the southern tip of Louisiana? The whole thing sort of tickles me.
Susan and I are the only people eating in a place that is probably packed at 2:00 in the afternoon on a normal summer day. I take note of the sagging floor and wonder if it’s damage from Katrina. On the wall next to our table is a poster for the Tarpon Rodeo, the oldest fishing tournament in America, which has been taking place in Grand Isle every 4th of July since 1928, and that’s when the total impact of this whole disaster finally hits me. This incredibly unique culture, which has survived catastrophic hurricanes, countless yellow fever epidemics, pirates, the inquisition of industry and the total depletion of the natural ecosystem may finally have come to it’s demise because of an oil leak miles away on the ocean floor.
