The death of the bayou- and us
When we were in New Orleans last year, I picked up an incredible book at Beckhams Book Shop in the quarter called Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana’s Cajun Coast, by Mike Tidwell.
“bayou”
Have you ever read something that enthralled and enraged you at the same time? This is such a book. It depicts the harsh life of Gulf Coast shrimpers, who literally watch as their lives are taken away by the relentless advance of the Gulf into the deltas of the Mississippi, all brought about after the flood of 1927, when the first system of permanent levees were erected to “save” New Orleans from flooding. In doing so, the natural regenerative process of flood and rebirth was forever altered. No more would silt from the great plains build islands in the delta, anchored by cypress and sea grass, providing breeding grounds for 40% of America’s seafood.
And then came Katrina. The levees failed, but the bigger story was that without the wetlands buffering the coast, the storm roared unabated inland, dumping water into the bowl that is New Orleans that should have rained itself out 100s of miles away. Katrina alone was enough to ravage the livelihood of the Gulf Coast seafood industry, and now with the BP disaster, we can kiss America’s Gulf Coast goodbye. I listened this morning to an interview with a oyster man from the Gulf- “Overnight, my business is gone. I have to get a job now. Who is going to pay me for that?” Who indeed. BP will end up bankrupt before they even begin to repay all that they have destroyed, small comfort for such a monumental insult to the world.
The gulf was more than just a vital economic and environmental system, it was a perfect testing ground for capitalism run amok. Corrupt southern politicians let big corporations write the rules, as long as the money rolled in. Somehow a nation that sends school kids home for pointing fingers and going “bang bang” and other nanny state nonsense can’t find it in itself to regulate huge corporations who rape our land daily for short-term profit. Our priorities have been too wrong for too long, and the spill in the Gulf is a perfect picture of the lab results. I wonder what my uber conservative friend in Mobile says when his grandson asks why they can’t walk on the beach in Mobile? That granddaddies “free market” tossed dead pelicans and tar balls onto the white sands? Doubtful.
Mike Tidwell is back, building upon the wonderful Bayou Farewell with The Ravaging Tide, which takes us past just the Gulf and examines how human forces are forever altering the earth- and the price we pay as a culture and a species for it. In the long term, the earth will shrug us off like a flea on an elephant, but until then, we’re pushing the limits of what a closed system can withstand, when you allow the “free market” free reign.
Easy to see now, but it will be ignored as always, and as always, the BPs and Halliburtons of the world will re-emerge, ready to pillage another part of the globe, fuck it up, and walk away. Left behind are the generations of shrimpers forced to learn a new life, a gulf devoid of living things, and a giant hole in the earth.
Worth it? I think not.
