Aging Oil Infrastructure in La. Is Disaster-in-Waiting

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http://blogs.edf.org/personalnature/2010/06/07/why-the-bp-blowout-wont-be-the-last-tragedy-in-the-gulf-of-mexico/

Why the BP Blowout Won't Be the Last Tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico
June 7, 2010

The BP Gulf Oil Gusher has shown the whole world the nightmarish risks of deep sea drilling. But there is another, older, story of environmental destruction in the Mississippi River Delta wetlands—and it, too, is related to offshore drilling. This tragedy will continue long after BP's well is shut down, and it's another accident just waiting to happen.

The first offshore well was drilled in fourteen feet of water off the coast of Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana in 1937. In the decades that followed, a dense infrastructure was thrown up to support a booming offshore oil business—which was rapidly moving into ever-greater depths. Some 30,000 to 40,000 miles of underwater pipeline were laid—maps show a dense thicket of infrastructure—and navigational canals were cut through the wetlands for shipping. Most of these pipelines and canals that service the roughly 4,000 active wells in the Gulf were built long before environmental laws were passed and agencies were created to protect the wetlands. This oil infrastructure has cost Louisiana dearly, and it will threaten the Gulf coast for years to come. snip


Lance Nacio's story vividly illustrates the impact of land subsidence in the Delta. For more than a century, his family has owned a couple of thousand acres of freshwater marshland, about thirty to forty miles inland, in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana...This beautiful land is rapidly disappearing. Since Nacio inherited it 21 years ago, he figures about 30% has vanished underwater. As saltwater rushes into his marshes, the freshwater grasses die off and grasses that thrive in saltwater haven't grown in fast enough to stop the land from eroding. His land was once protected by barrier islands further south in the Gulf, but they have subsided, leaving him increasingly vulnerable. Now his land is also subsiding into the water, literally sinking from sight.

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1. Doug Brinkley is talking on CNN right now...

...about the news he has heard that Obama is putting together a Louisiana Restoration Act with a new excise tax putting money back into Gulf pockets. The MS River will be re-routed, even.

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2. hopefully this will include replacing the aging infrastructure

all we need is another blowout due to some rusted pipelines.

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3. the entire infrastructure of America must be rebuilt

it is falling apart! Much of this work that is now crumbling away was built by my parents and my grandparents, all of who are now dead!

The time has come to rebuild and restore America.

The time is now!

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