What's Really Going to Destroy the Gulf Coast

Dave Thier Contributor

AOL News

(Oct. 30) -- Six months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the areas affected by the massive oil spill are beginning to recover.

But for years the Mississippi River delta has faced a threat even more insidious than that of a geyser of oil, and for many in coastal wetlands, "recovery" is a dicey proposition at best. Amid spills and storms, the land in the delta itself is falling away, and some fear that if something isn't done to curb erosion and saltwater intrusion soon, the entire area may just fall into the ocean.

"I'm not saying the oil spill was child's play," Eric Hansen, a shrimp dock manager in Plaquemines Parish, told AOL News. "But compared to this, the oil spill is child's play."

Saul Loeb, AFP / Getty Images

Clint Edds, a fisheries biologist with the Lousiana Department of Wildlife and Fish, examines marsh wetlands, whose natural cycle of replenishment has been interrupted by levees built to control the Mississippi River.

The delta is a shifting landmass by nature. It's not built on bedrock but by silt carried south over thousands of years and deposited at the mouth of the river. Over time, it would be eroded by ocean waves and replenished when the Mississippi flooded.

That all changed when engineers in the early 20th century tried to rein in the river. They built levees to control the natural flooding and facilitate development, and the natural cycle of replenishing the land began to break down.

On top of that, oil and gas companies came in behind the levees and started to carve up the marshes to build transportation canals all the way out to the gulf to serve the burgeoning Louisiana energy industry. The longer canals let saltwater into freshwater marshes, killing the vegetation and allowing ocean waves and storm surges closer and closer to the old mud levees protecting the precarious towns and cities set up on thin strips of land.

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Without those marshes, cities like New Orleans would be even more vulnerable to storm surges than they are now. The seafood industry would suffer as untold species of animals lose their nurseries. And all the navigation infrastructure in the area, designed for a marsh ecosystem, would become ineffective. The effects could extend all the way to people like duck hunters in Wisconsin, who might find that their prey had nowhere to live for the winter.

Some suggest just blowing up the levees and hoping for the best, but the populations in southern Louisiana find themselves in a difficult situation: The structures they built that allowed development and industry to move in to begin with may now be threatening everything they've built in the marshes. Allowing the Mississippi River to flood naturally is no longer an option.

There could be a way to simulate the river's natural floods without damaging vulnerable communities in places like Plaquemines and Terrebone parishes. According to Aaron Viles, campaign director for the Gulf Restoration Network, a system of freshwater introductions connecting the river back up to the marshes in a way that mimics the river's natural flooding could be enough to stabilize the system.

It would be an expensive proposition, costing as much as $15 billion. In the midst of recession, a plan like that might seem impossible. But some money may soon be made available from a certain unpopular benefactor in the area. Viles hopes that if there is an opportunity to be seized in the BP oil disaster, it's that the money the company pays in fines and penalties could be used to build a system that could keep the Mississippi River delta alive.

"We're seeing historical levels of money coming from legal efforts, and if we don't want that money to disappear into the black hole of the federal coffer, we need to tell Congress that it is only right to stand up and say that it is only right that this area which has been a national sacrifice zone for so long see the bulk of this money put toward recovery," Viles told AOL News.

"I am convinced we can do it. It's not rocket science, but it is river science."