LIKE so many governments blessed with reserves of fossil fuels, Louisiana has long been in thrall to the energy business. For the last century, oil has had such a powerful effect on the Pelican State’s generally tepid economy that politicians have been loath to challenge the industry. Indeed, Louisiana has offered generous (and unnecessary) subsidies to drillers that apply even in boom times, and its regulators have demonstrated a soft touch when it comes to enforcing environmental rules.
The rapid erosion of the state’s ragged coastline is in part a result of that bias. Louisiana loses about 20 square miles of wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico every year. The major culprits include rising seas, sinking lands, and the Mississippi River levee system, which has protected the bird’s-foot delta from annual inundation, but at the same time deprived the area of the sediment that built it in the first place. But most agree that oil and gas exploration is also among the primary drivers of coastal land loss in Louisiana. Though there are broad disagreements over precisely how much blame to apportion to each cause, it is beyond dispute that the digging of thousands of canals in coastal...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2h6XJkJ
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