Copyright 1999 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
MARCH 10, 1999, WEDNESDAY
SECTION: IN THE NEWS
LENGTH:
3045 words
HEADLINE: PREPARED TESTIMONY OF MARK DAVIS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE COALITION
TO RESTORE COASTAL LOUISIANA
BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
SUBJECT - H.R.
701 AND H.R. 798
BODY:
My name is Mark Davis
and I am the executive director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana.
On behalf of the Coalition, I would like to express our appreciation to the
Committee and the Chairman for inviting us to come here today. The Coalition to
Restore Coastal Louisiana is a broad based not-for-profit organization comprised
of local governments, businesses, environmental and conservation groups, civic
groups, recreational and commercial fishermen, and concerned individuals
dedicated to the restoration and stewardship the lower Mississippi River delta
and Louisiana's chenier plain.
We welcome this opportunity because the
matters before the Committee today are of vital concern to anyone interested in
the future and stewardship of this nation's waters, coasts, wildlife, and public
lands. They are certainly of vital concern to those of us who live at the
southern end of the Mississippi River for whom the ability to be better stewards
of our coastal resources is vital to the survival of those things we hold most
dear. Indeed for years, the Coalition has striven to raise awareness of the need
to protect and restore the vast but threatened system of wetlands and barrier
shorelines that define coastal Louisiana culturally, ecologically, and
economically. For that reason we have followed with great hope and interest the
proposals now before this Committee and before the Senate to invest in the
stewardship of this nation's natural treasures and to address the coast-side
impacts of the production of OCS oil and gas.
In considering the bills that
are the subject of this hearing, this Committee and this Congress are
undertaking the laudable task of determining how best to invest in future of our
invaluable natural heritage--our waters and coasts, our wildlife, and our public
lands. Both bills, even with their differences, represent an important step
forward in the stewardship of those resources and we commend their authors and
sponsors for taking up this challenge. There is much hard work ahead as the
bills are refined and reconciled as they must be if they are to deliver on the
promise of better stewardship. As that work proceeds, we believe it is essential
that it be guided by clear goals and policies so the end result is measured not
primarily in dollars devoted to issues and locales but to the achievement of
positive conservation and stewardship results.
While we strongly support the
public lands and wildlife initiatives embraced by both ChairmanYoung's and
Representative Miller's bills, it is the issue of coastal stewardship to which I
will direct the bulk of my comments to today. Specifically, I would like to
address the issue of the need to ameliorate the damages to coastal environments
and communities as a result of their hosting the transportation, processing, and
servicing facilities associated with OCS oil and gas activity. Apart from a few
dollars provided under the Section 8g program, little has been done recognize
those impacts, much less to address them. It is time to take them seriously and
it needs to be an integral part of any legitimate effort to refocus the use of
Federal OCS revenues.
Before wading too far into the issues of OCS revenues
and coastal impact assistance it is important to note a couple
of points. First, the impacts are very real. To anyone who has
visited coastal Louisiana--which, along with Texas, supports in
a logistical sense virtually all of the existing OCS activity in this
country--those impacts on the natural resources, communities, and public
infrastructure are undeniable. To anyone who hasn't, they are largely
unimaginable.
The second point to be made is that those impacts deserve real
solutions, not merely money and programs. The two great fears we hear from
people who live in affected areas are (a) that nothing will be done and (b) that
the impacts will be used to justify large infusions of cash that are not
sufficiently directed toward effective solutions and that, if fact, could
further exacerbate the problem. Of course the fear of many people who live in
states that do not have OCS activity off their shores is that the availability
of impact assistance funds could serve as an incentive to state and local
governments to acquiesce to new OCS leasing and development. The challenge
facing those wrestling with the coastal impact issue is how to define and
address those impacts legitimately associated with oil and gas activity while
not creating more problems elsewhere. We understand that will not be easy. You
must understand that it must, nonetheless, be done.
Because if it is not,
areas of vital natural, cultural, and economic importance are not to be lost
forever--areas like the great Mississippi River delta and its neighboring
coastal plain. Areas of that have already lost more than 1 million acres of
coastal wetlands and barrier islands this century and that continue to disappear
at the rate of nearly 30 square miles each year. This is serious stuff and it
demands serious attention. Indeed, a failure to act may well be judged by not to
distant generations as one of the greatest failures our time.
But knowing
that one must act and knowing what to do are very different things. Various
efforts have been mounted before, based on everything from amorphous fairness
claims to fine spun legal arguments and none have worked. And the problems
continue to get worse. If this history teaches anything it is that solutions to
this coastal crisis will continue to be elusive until the nature of the problem
and the nature of the solutions are better explained. Indeed, to approach it is
any other way would be irresponsible.
With that in mind, the balance of my
testimony will lay out in brief terms the range and scope of coastal impacts
that the coast of Louisiana has incurred as a function of its role in serving as
a support base for the offshore oil and gas industry. Obviously, that oil and
gas activity does not occur in a vacuum. Other forces have been at play in our
coast as well and they will also be noted to provide context. Indeed, it is
probably impossible to pigeon-hole causes and effects. Flood control, navigation
and oil and gas activity have combined to so completely alter the face of
coastal Louisianaas to render it unsustainable without major corrective action.
I have chosen to focus on Louisiana for several reasons beyond the obvious
one of it being the place that I know best. First, the vast majority of OCS
activity in this country takes place off Louisiana's coast and is supported by
on shore facilities and service providers. Second, as home to the mouth of the
Mississippi River and its associated coastal plain, Louisiana contains the
largest expanse of coastal wetlands in the lower 48 states, comprising more than
25% of the nation's coastal wetlands and 40% of its salt marshes. In short, the
area most impacted by the OCS activity is also the most unique and productive
wetland and estuarine system in North America. Any effort to address coastal
impacts that does work for this case is fatally flawed, as is any effort to
earmark a portion of OCS revenues for environmental and conservation purposes
that fails to address the impacts associated with the generation of those
revenues.
Nature and Coastal Louisiana To understand what is happening in
coastal Louisiana it is crucial to have some understanding of its natural and
geologic history. The geology, biology, and culture of coastal Louisiana are
defined by the Mississippi River and the deltas it has built over the years. The
eastern half of Louisiana's coastal zone is a deltaic plain comprised of deltas
created over thousands of years of seasonal flooding by the river.
The
western half of the coastal zone, the chenier plain, was built in large part by
river borne sediments that were transported west by Gulf currents and deposited
along the coast. The result of this process is a vast area of coastal wetlands
unmatched in size and productivity anywhere in this nation. To put this in
perspective consider the following:
* Coastal Louisiana contains over 25% of
the nation's coastal wetlands and 40% of its salt marshes.
* Louisiana's
coastal wetlands support the largest fisheries in the lower forty-eight states.
* Its coastal wetlands are a vital nursery and feeding area for millions of
birds and waterfowl that traverse the Mississippi flyway.
Even under the
best of conditions, land tends to be ephemeral stuff in Louisiana's coastal
region. Through compaction and subsidence it, in essence, sinks. Only through
the natural process of freshwater influx and deposition of new sediment from the
Mississippi which would spread in a sheet-flow manner across the vast swamps and
marshes was it possible to offset the losses attributable to compaction and
subsidence. Coastal Louisiana is in fact not so much a place as it is a process,
a process in which land building must balance land loss just to maintain a "no
net loss" situation.
The Causes of Coastal Impacts on Coastal Louisiana
The fundamental problem facing the region today is the loss of that balance.
Human activities suchas levee construction, and channelization have to a large
extent shut down the land building part of the process. Millions of tons of
land-building sediment are now dumped into the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico
rather than into the marsh where they could create or stabilize land.
At the
same time the land-building process was effectively halted, human activities
were also altering or stressing existing wetlands to the point that, during the
twentieth century, more than one million acres have been lost. Lost not
primarily to actual development but to open water. Thousands of miles of oil and
gas canals and navigation channels have carved up the coastal marshes, changing
their hydrology and making them vulnerable to saltwater intrusion. It is
critical to highlight these impacts in order to counter two widely held
misconceptions. First, that land loss in coastal Louisiana is primarily a
natural phenomenon. It is not. The pace and scale of coastal collapse is
entirely out of synch with the natural cycles of even a geologically dynamic
area such as the Mississippi River delta. And second, that the human induced
impacts were largely the doings of local residents for their enrichment or
benefit. They aren't. The vast bulk of navigation, flood control and oil and gas
activity in the region have been pursued as part of national programs to
facilitate interstate commerce, develop oil and gas resources, and control
Mississippi River flooding. To be sure, locals benefitted to some extent, but,
without a doubt, the primary beneficiaries of all this activity lay outside of
the state of Louisiana.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the area of oil
and gas activity. Oil and gas exploration and production have been part of
Louisiana's history for more than a century. It developed over the course of
many years. It began in an era when wetlands were considered "worthless" and
continues today in an era when many now view them as priceless. It saw the very
first successful OCS rig erected 10 miles off its coast by Kerr-McGee in 1947.
No one knew how to drill for oil in such depths then, much less how to manage
the impacts--not that such impacts were at that time even really been much of a
concern. And in the 25 years between the first production from that rig and the
First Earth Day in 1970 (and the Santa Barbara spill that preceded it) more than
8,800 wells were in place in the federal OCS waters off Louisiana's coast. By
last count, Louisiana had more than 30,000 oil and gas wells in its coastal zone
with another 20,000 in its offshore OCS area. The federal OCS of its shores area
are more than 50 % leased and it coastal area is criss-crossed by tens of
thousands of miles of pipelines that serve coastal and OCS facilities (more than
20,000 miles of pipelines offshore alone). Pipelines that run through its
marshes, swamps and barrier islands. Pipelines that leave behind canals up to 70
feet wide and run for miles. Pipelines whose spoil banks serve as dams that
disrupt the natural sheet-flow that is essential to the survival of the
wetlands. Pipelines whose canals serve as conduits for salt water to penetrate
deep into fresh water habitats. Pipelines that, in the case of a 24 inch pipe,
can spill 2.5 million gallons of oil in an hour if ruptured.
In many other
parts of the country, the effect of this scale of activity would be significant
but limited in time and space. That is not the case in the coastal regions of
Louisiana. Here they accumulate and magnify. That is why today, when the annual
direct impacts of newly permitted projects measure often only in the hundreds of
acres, the overall landloss rate continues to exceed 25 square miles per year.
That is why the risk of major oil spills increases as the coast deteriorates
thereby exposing literally thousands of older wells, pipelines, and production
facilities that once were protected by miles of buffering marsh and barrier
islands to open bay and open Gulf conditions. Theimpact genie is out of the
bottle.
And it is critical to emphasize that even with the protection
afforded by the Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act the impacts
continue. Indeed, new pipelines are being laid each day. Crewboats and immense
platforms ply the dredged bayous and canals to service and expand the OCS
industry. Waterways that were once fifty feet wide now span hundreds of feet
from the wakes of these boats. The Calcasieu Ship Channel long has been
identified as one of the main causes of the loss of nearly 80,000 acres of
wetlands in southwestern Louisiana. And for the residents of the coastal zone,
the worst part is that they get little or nothing from this OCS related
activity. It produces relatively few jobs (and even fewer with growth
potential), it produces no direct revenue for the state or local governments
although it does require them to support the industry with roads, police and
emergency services, and--when the inevitable down times come--to cope with the
social cost of unemployment and family stress.
It has also become
dramatically clear, as demonstrated during the 1998 hurricane season, that the
future effects of these landscape and community pressures will be worse than in
the past unless action is taken soon. The combined effects of subsidence, sea
level rise and coastal wetland loss will directly threaten population centers
such as New Orleans, transportation arteries, and the viability of the greatest
estuarine fishery in the nation. Tropical Storm Francis, which did not even make
landfall in Louisiana, left the main east-west highway in coastal Louisiana--a
major evacuation corridor--under water for more than a week. Gulf waters that
once were kept at bay by miles of marsh, lapped at the base of levees in towns
such as Golden Meadow and Leeville. Indeed, so much has changed in recent years
that the children of the Isle de Jean Charles community now miss as much as two
weeks of school each year because the road to their town is too flooded to pass.
Conclusions and Solutions
In offering this testimony my purpose is not
to sound a Cassandra warning, cast blame, or merely stake a claim to a pot of
money. Rather it is to make the simple point that a coastal crisis is at hand as
is the opportunity do something significant about it. And both deserve very
serious attention. This is especially true since, for most Americans, the
impacts to the Louisiana and Gulf coasts are abstractions if they are aware of
them at all. And one cannot prioritize that which one is not aware of.
Because once one comes to terms with the extent of the unremedied impacts to
coastal regions that support our nation's coastal and offshore petroleum
activity, it should become clear that delay is not an option and that without
prompt action the next generation of impacts will only be worse in terms of
ecological, cultural, and economic consequences.
It should also become clear
that these impacts deserve a committed national response-not merely a Federal or
state response. The impacts resulted from activities that benefitted the entire
nation and that, by and large, reflected national priorities and values.And
finally, it should be clear that responses to the problems should be aimed at
restoring sustainable function to our natural coastal ecosystems and addressing
essential storm protection, drinking water, and transportation infrastructure
that is already compromised. Elevating an evacuation route that now floods and
serves to impede natural water flows is one thing, widening a road to allow new
development in flood prone areas is something else. In sum, any response that
puts more people in harms way, encourages more destructive impacts, or becomes
essentially a general purpose block grant is not a solution. While we do not
understand either of the bills being heard today to intend such an
interpretation, additional clarification may be necessary. We would urge that
the best way to ensure that any coastal impact assistance is
used in the way the drafters intend would be to expressly build upon any
existing watershed, coastal management plans, or restoration plans that may
already be in existence. Many hours and taxpayer dollars have been spent under a
multitude of authorities such as the Coastal Zone Management Act, the National
Estuary Program, the Coastal Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act,
and others to produce strategies and plans for improving coastal resources and
waters. The planning provisions of any new legislation should build on that
history rather than competing with them.
These suggestions are offered in
the spirit of advancing this historic opportunity to safeguard our posterity. We
may never have such a good opportunity again. We appreciate the efforts of the
bills sponsors--we are particularly grateful to the members of Louisiana's
delegation-- who have take up this cause. The Coalition to Restore Coastal
Louisiana pledges to be of whatever assistance we can be in this effort.
Again, we appreciate the opportunity to appear here today and share our
thoughts with the Committee.
END
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14, 1999