Border blues: At the forefront of environmental activism
The Mississippi River drains 32 states in total, including two provinces in Canada, and flows from Minnesotans in the north to the Gulf of Mexico in the south. It is fundamental to US history, culture, and the country’s agriculture sector, of course.
It is a very potent and significant natural resource, especially for the southern United States. Farmers have been using the river’s flow for centuries, but because of their inadvertent land loss, a sizable chunk of the state may be under water by 2050. According to Greg Grandy, Deputy Director of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, this entails not only the actual loss of arable land but also the degradation of habitat, which will have a significant effect on the seafood industries already stated in addition to the predicament of Louisiana’s rich fauna.
The state’s vitality
When you visit the great state of Louisiana, as I did recently while traveling with the US Sustainability Alliance, you will quickly realize how important the Mississippi River is to nearly everyone who calls it home.
Secretary Mike Strain of the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry highlighted the river’s immense value as a logistical asset, citing the passage of several billion dollars’ worth of food up and downstream. With a quarter of a billion dollars invested in river dredging, the state has been making use of this enormous natural highway for years, and it continues to expand its potential. According to Strain, this will “put $750 million dollars back into the pockets of our farmers each year.”
Trade was severely impacted in the month of 2024, as the Mississippi hit record low levels. Commissioner Strain said, “We moved barges to one wide instead of two or three wide.” Transport expenses “tripled in cost” between Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and St. Louis, Missouri, according to Strain.
In addition to dredging initiatives aimed at both augmenting the river’s capacity and alleviating low water levels, Strain is pushing the farmers in the state to take matters into their own hands.
He declared, “We need more on farm storage.” “You’re more likely to be able to ship your product when it makes sense financially if you can store it well.”
Water high and deep
Of course, low water levels are bad news, but it’s the opposite that keeps many people up at night. Large tracts of farmland can be inundated by high water levels caused by storms or heavy rains, wreaking havoc in their wake.
A visit to Morganza, Louisiana’s Four Oaks Farm demonstrated how high the stakes are. That area, which includes a portion of the Morganza Floodway, has been farmed by the Frey family for many years. In addition to providing essential flood defense, the Floodway shields Baton Rouge and New Orleans are protected from storm surges and high water levels.
Since the Frey family started farming at Four Oaks, it has only been opened completely twice, but each time has had disastrous results, rendering hundreds or even thousands of acres of their farms unusable for extended periods of time. Rich, fertile soil is left behind when the water levels subside, but there is a significant initial loss of agricultural revenue.
Downriver, the effects are just as bad, if not worse, approaching the Gulf of Mexico, sometimes known as “The Gulf” in Louisianan slang. The state is very concerned about land loss due to silt erosion and rising sea levels. In addition to being home to some of Louisiana’s most significant exports, including brown shrimp, the wetlands are also crucial to the state’s natural balance. Exports from Louisiana would also be lost, resulting in the loss of jobs and livelihoods for Louisianans.
The prototype
The Louisiana State University (LSU) Center for River Studies is at the forefront of the initiative to reverse land loss, both physically and figuratively. Its enormous Lower Mississippi Physical Model, which lays out almost 200 river miles on a physical foam bed from Donaldsonville to the Gulf of Mexico, is without a doubt the work of art.
Here, LSU scholars and collaborators lay out models for sediment diversion, forecasts of land loss and gain, and finally the Coastal Masterplan, which helps legislators, farmers, and fishermen in Louisiana understand how future developments will impact their town, business, or district.
The model is a very potent tool that can simulate the next five decades in about fifty hours using data from actual monitoring facilities in the Valley.
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Presenting the information
It is obvious that the data generated by LSU’s model is extremely useful, but only if it ends up in the correct hands. Grandy and others work to make sure that everyone who has to see the model’s predictions—from state commissioners to crabbers—sees them, no matter how dire.
The several parties involved in the fight against climate change in this region of the US present CPRA with a challenge. There are thousands or maybe hundreds of fishers.
farmers, oystermen, and crabbers who operate and own the waterways and land depicted in the LSU model. It’s difficult to get to them all, particularly when up to 85% of the area surrounding the Gulf is privately held, as Grandy disclosed.
To what extent are those stakeholders open to the frequently pessimistic forecasts that are made available to them? Grandy answered, tongue firmly in cheek, “Well, very,” even though occasionally elected leaders would like them to “stop showing the people scary maps.”
What more should we do, really?
Here, there is a strong awareness of the value of nature to the state’s food chain and the repercussions of not protecting this natural resource. Grandy asserted that Louisianans are “tied to their land perhaps more than anywhere.” While other states may disagree with this assertion, it is obvious that the state’s farmers, fisherman, and citizens face dire consequences as a result of nature.
It should therefore be no surprise that there is a real appetite for conservation and protection. But whether Grandy and the CPRA’s message is getting through or not is another matter. Martin Frey, co-owner of Four Oaks Farm, expressed a certain resignation when asked about the effect climate change, flooding and land loss might have on his farm in an interview with New Food.
“I don’t know that there’s a whole bunch that we can do. We know that we’re doing the most that we can do and trying to be as sustainable as we can – that’s all we can do in this moment in time.”
The conflicts between the present and the future are there. Grandy and his group will accurately depict the scene in all its vividness, warts and all. Farmers like the Freys, who are already outstanding leaders in the field of sustainable agriculture, believe they are doing everything within their power. Is there much leeway to take further action? Who is going to foot the bill for the higher manufacturing costs associated with some sustainable practices? Countries all around the world are engaged in this tug-of-war, but attention is particularly focused on it when one is standing on territory that may be submerged in a few decades.