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EDITORIAL: Making the Louisiana coast a priority |
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Nancy Sutley, the White House's point person on the environment, got an
airboat-level view of Louisiana's eroding coastal marshes Tuesday. In a
photo from Big Branch Refuge near Lacombe, the boat appears to be in
open water, but there is a small strip of green marsh grass in the
distance.
Louisianians who have fished and worked the coast for decades can point to broad expanses of water and describe the stands of trees and fields of grass that once grew there. Byron Encalade, a fisher from East Pointe-a-la-Hache, talked recently about the dramatic loss of land. "I used to travel at night on my boat from St. Bernard all the way across the Mississippi line with only a compass, because we had landmarks we could navigate by," said Mr. Encalade, who fishes for oyster and shrimp. "You can't do that anymore. All the small islands, all the passes, they've all washed away." |
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HASTINGS: Time to improve the Endangered Species Act
May 18, 2012 - When the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon, he spoke about the importance of preserving “the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed.” I believe that goal is as important today as it was back then. However, after nearly 40 years, it’s time to take a fresh, honest look at the law and consider whether there are ways it could be improved to do a better job of protecting and recovering species.
