Air & Water Pollution

As previously mentioned, the Clean Water Act of 1972 and the Clean Air Act of 1963 were both enacted to protect from water and air pollution in the United States, not just the wetlands. In 2010 in the wake of the BP oil spill, the United States federal government sued British Petroleum and several other companies for damages related to the spill. Researchers from the University of California-Irvine discovered toxic chemicals including methane, hexane, and certain butane compounds. These chemicals begin to cause irritation to the skin and eyes, as well as dizziness. Oddly enough, the air samples though were not above the standards set by the federal government; they were higher though than Los Angeles and Mexico. Along with the air pollution, water pollution became an issue almost immediately. WaterWideWeb.org said that May 19^th, 2010 Governor Bobby Jindal began to pressure the Federal government to protect wildlife as the marshes were being effected down by the Mississippi. On top of that, the water in the area would be polluted further as chemicals used to break up the oil also contained harmful toxins. These toxins can kill birds and fish in the area as well. The wetlands can help disperse some of the harm done by water pollution, but they have limitations. Without the wetlands though being lost as time goes on, the dispersing of these chemicals can’t continue to occur  without wetlands.

Sources:

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/o/oil_spills/gulf_of_mexico_2010/index.html

Louisiana Geography [Chapter 14]

Following Hurricane Katrina, there was plenty of discussion about the location of the city of New Orleans, and much of southern Louisiana and its geography. The geography is one of the most fascinating parts about the state of Louisiana as the entire state lies only on average around 100 feet above sea level. Parts of the state are even several feet below it. One of the great debates after some of the hurricanes in the last several years have created some speculation about the location of major cities in the state, mainly New Orleans.

There are plenty of myths about Louisiana’s land area including that it is sinking, which would also contribute to the land loss in the region. Levees.org put together a compilation of myths and facts of the area with clear explanations as well. One example is that contrary to popular belief, New Orleans does not reside below sea level. The areas of the city that are above it, albeit by several feet, include the French Quarter, the Lower Ninth Ward, the Garden District, and many others. People also tend to believe that the city and these small parts of the city are sinking at rapid rate. While the city of New Orleans and the New Orleans area is sinking, the rate it’s sinking is greatly overrated. Studies from the Geological Study of America show that the rate of sinking and subsidence is around 1 millimeter per year. At that rate, it will only total a little less than four inches in this century which is barely anything. Lastly, people make the argument about rebuilding a city that is so vulnerable to floods, hurricanes, and other disasters. The study addresses is there are 39 major cities that, not unlike New Orleans, lie in flood plains. With that, there is just as much risk of rebuilding cities on fault lines, in the middle of Tornado Alley, and in the Dakotas where huge ice storms occur annually.

Sources: 

Levees.org

Weather Pattern Affecting Wetlands

The losses of large portions of the chain of the barrier islands from Hurricane Katrina greatly affected the rate of land loss. Issues continued when the sea levels are increasing due to natural and unnatural causes. The increases in greenhouse gases and pollutants have affected weather patterns around the world. New weather patterns have altered the intensity of storms and hurricanes all around the world.

Erosion and wetland loss had been occurring at a natural rate of change forever. The earth has been able to adjust itself under perfectly natural conditions. However, humankind has disrupted that natural cycle by air pollution, construction, and man-made ways of engineering water. A document published by Robert R. Twilley from Louisiana State University explains how the Gulf Coast is even more vulnerable than other regions of the United States. Twilley says that, “the Gulf Coast region is considered especially vulnerable to a changing climate because of its relatively flat topography, rapid rates of land subsidence”. He goes on to say mention that in the Mississippi delta, rapid subsidence has already produced accelerated rates of relative sea-level rise.”

If the intensities of storms remain consistent through the next century, the already affected wetlands will still lose up to 40 inches due to a decrease in ability to withstand storms and natural subsidence.  If these wetlands can balance themselves, the current climate models would predict that the Gulf Coast wetlands would only lose around one to three feet instead.

Sources:

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Regional-Impacts-Gulf.pdf

Laws Protecting Wetlands

The Environmental Protection Agency in recent years has helped develop legislation that would further help the wetlands and the other parts of the United States. Two key pieces of legislation specifically that affect the restoration and preservation of the wetlands are the Clean Water Act of 1972 and North American Wetlands Conservation of 1989. The first act, also known as the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, was originally put into law in 1948 but overhauled in the 1970s. The programs and laws in the act help with both the quality of water and helps punish people and companies who impede the progress of such things.

The Clean Water Act has five key points. The Encyclopedia of Earth website at eoearth.org defines the five points of this act as: a system of minimum national effluent standards for each industry; water quality standards; a discharge permit program that translates these standards into enforceable limits; provisions for special problems such as toxic chemicals and oil spills; and, a revolving construction loan program for publicly-owned treatment works.

Water protection is addressed specifically in two sections: Section 101 and Section 303. The first section, Section 101 helps protect the wildlife as well as any recreation activities in or on water in the United States. The latter section, Section 303, helps protect the water quality; however some states hadn’t established quality standards for wetlands. The other problem is that the Clean Water Act did not protect the wetlands or the elimination of them. Another section discusses specifically the pollution of the wetlands and other waters.

The other important act to protect wetlands is the North American Wetlands Conservation Act. The act helps provide grants for wetland conservation and protect the wildlife of the area. Funding for the act comes from partnerships with businesses, conservation organizations, citizens, and the government. The federal government, specifically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, then matches these funds. 

Sources:

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Clean_Water_Act,_United_States

http://www.water.ncsu.edu/watershedss/info/wetlands/protect.html#sec101

http://www.fws.gov/birdhabitat/Grants/NAWCA/index.shtm

http://operationdeltaduck.com/blog/2011/02/the-death-of-north-american-wetlands-conservation-act-grants/

http://www.igkmrp.org/nawca.htm

Pollution & Toxins

     The wetlands in Louisiana can also act as a buffer to pollutants in the water. While beautiful, the common comparison frequently made about the wetlands is that they are the kidneys of nature. The basis behind the nickname is that kidneys can filter out pollution and toxins that advance into the area. However, like the kidney which does a similar function in the human body, if it takes in too much pollution and toxic materials, the wetlands will begin to breakdown and begin to be destroyed. The BP Oil Spill in 2010 and Hurricane Katrina expedited the destruction with a mix of different toxins. However, in some cases, the toxins found may have been already present long before these two famous disasters.

     Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused a variety of issues with health and pollution in the Louisiana area. Some people in the area discussed a phenomenon they called “Toxic Soup” that while an issue was not nearly all because of the hurricane. The initial reports had the public concerned that the toxicity of the floodwaters due to chemicals, oil, human waste, and even dead bodies. However, this would be disproved as a later study showed that the amount of toxic metals found had been present in waters prior to Hurricane Katrina. The following was posted in an article posted on medicalnewstoday.com:

In one report, Michael T. Abel, Ph.D., of Texas Tech University in Lubbock, described finding potentially hazardous levels of lead and arsenic in New Orleans soil samples collected after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "It should be noted that similar values found in this sampling effort were present in studies conducted before the hurricanes," Abel wrote in a summary of his presentation.

Without the wetlands, a lot of this natural filtering would not have been feasible. In this same article it is also mentioned how 118 square miles of wetlands turned into just water, which will reduce the amount of protection these wetlands can provide. 

      Five years later, the BP Oil Spill destroyed more of these same wetlands. Unfortuantely though in the case of an oil spill, the recovery efforts cannot be as simple as the ones for any other disaster. Charles Lavis, a lawyer working on the case of the oil spill explains on a blog that the mix of oily water and dead vegetation is hard to clean up because walking on soaked grass and removing said vegetation can remove roots necessary for re-growth. Some scientist have said though that nature will run its course to remove the mess. The problem with letting nature do what it needs to is the fishing business that is the primary source of income for many people in Louisiana. The other larger concern is that the amount of land that would be lost by the Oil Spill will exceed the amount lost by Hurricane Katrina.

Sources:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/51661.php

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/9/8/toxic_soup_the_deadly_floodwaters_of

http://www.bpoilspilllawblog.com/2010/08/no-easy-answers-in-wetland-cle.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/23/gulf-oil-spill-cleaning-w_n_586240.html

Nutria - Overpopulation within the Ecosystems

Another issue that plagues the wetlands is the overpopulation of nutria. Nutria, also known as coypu, are semi-aquatic rodents that are not indigenous to in the United States. These rodents traditionally come from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and other South American countries. Nutria were originally introduced to the United States in 1899 to California and can presently be found in 15 of the 50 states. In the early 1930s, the nutrias were imported from fur farms into the wetlands of Louisiana to be hunted in fur trades. The nutria were on the move when trappers moved them to Port Arthur, Texas and the Mississippi River area before a hurricane would disperse them further.

Nutria would aid in controlling the weeds in the wetlands through the late 1940s. They would be the primary consumers of water hyacinths that were throughout Louisiana. Their reproductive cycle being exponential helped with rapid population growth. The US Geological Survey discusses the reproductive cycle of the nutria in an article titled “Nutria, Eating Louisiana’s Coast”. The article stated that nutria reach sexual maturity at six months of age and has a gestation period of only 130 days. In a single year, adult nutria is capable of producing two litters in a year of four to five; however, they are capable of birthing up to 13 in a single litter. The baby nutria are also born fully furred with their eyes open.

The nutria population by the 1950s was above 20 million, and the nutria had destroyed natural levees. The nutria were destroying other agricultural areas were being destroyed, leading to their removal from list of protected wildlife near the end of the 1950s. Louisiana promoted fur as a natural resource because of their overabundance. From the early 1960s through the early 1980s, hunting the nutria and hurricanes and other severe weather would help aid in reducing their population. The fur trade went bad in the late 1980s so the only consumer of the nutria then would be the alligator. Damage could be seen in satellite imagery through the 1990s and in 2002, a program was put in place to reduce the numbers further.

Sources:

http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/factshts/020-00.pdf

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080306094624.htm

http://www.nutria.com/site2.php