Today, I fell through the flotant marsh.

My week of flora fieldwork continued today, with vegetation monitoring along Bayou Segnette in the Jean Lafitte Barataria Preserve (my favorite park I've found).


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We were measuring bald cypress trees that were planted 1-3 years ago, and assessing their health. For the most part, they're looking good! This involved hiking through a spoil bank (basically the sides of the waterway that are built up with the stuff that gets dredged to keep the waterway clear), which was very dense with brambles and trees, and into the marsh, which had several inches of standing water.

I usually try to find out the landscape before I go out to do fieldwork, so I can make well-informed choices about my footwear. Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm not the kind of person who has a million pairs of shoes, but I do have several kinds of boots and outdoor/work footwear. With me in Louisiana, I have an old pair of awesome trail running shoes that serve as my water planting shoes; I have my yellow knee boots; I have my epic hiking boots; and a pair of cleaner, newer sneakers mostly reserved for doing active things that don't involve the wetlands.

Last time I planted in the Barataria Preserve, the ground was fairly high and dry, but after some thought about the recent rains and high water, I decided on knee boots. I was thankful that I did. Once past the spoil bank, there was several inches of standing water in the marsh.



Just before lunch, I discovered the hard way that it was a floating marsh, which is called flotant here. How did I discover this, you might ask?

I fell through it.

One misstep, and down I went. I was stuck in the mud up to my chest, with water up to my shoulders. I had an instantaneous moment in which I thought that I should be claustrophobic or scared or something, but it passed immediately and I focused on getting my legs out WITH my boots. I was certain I had lost one, but I managed to get myself and my wellies out. I had noticed all morning that the ground was shaking beneath our feet whenever a big, loud boat went by. I mean, they do call it trembling prairie.



I have entertained the idea of acquiring hip waders for some time, but most of the field work I do here is shallow enough for knee boots or in water so high that hip waders can't help me. I guess today it didn't really matter what footwear I chose anyway.

Today, I swam through an oil slick.

I'm having a fantastic week. Today was day 2/5 of planting projects. Plants! All week! Doing conservation!



Today's project was putting about 800 gallon buckets of bullrush along the edge of Blind River in St. James Parish. This was to protect a bulkhead from further erosion. I love planting in water! The river was really high because of recent heavy rains and a strong south wind earlier this week, so the banks were flooded. The ground was a mixed bag-- really mucky and easy in some places, really hard and requiring a dibble or sharpshooter in others.



As we were really struggling to get the rushes to stay. in. the. ground. along this particular area, I imagine we looked pretty funny from shore. We would just stand still in one spot for a while, basically treating the root ball like a pogo stick trying to get it to stay in the thin layer of mucky soil in water that was chin deep. So I'd look around a little bit because I couldn't see what I was doing anyway.



I was startled at one point in this stretch to notice something almost reddish to my right. At first, I thought I was bleeding. I checked my arms to see if I had nicked myself or something, but nothing. It kind of dissipated. I finally got the rush in the ground, and stepped sideways to plant another one, when I noticed I was in a pool of oil, all rainbow and shiny.



As soon as I moved, it began to break up slowly and spread out. It was really bizarre, because I imagine oil and water to look kind of blobby like when you pour vegetable oil into water. I suppose without the limitations of the bowl or measuring cup, the oil spreads out very thinly. The edges looked so strange.

I didn't think much of it at the time, because we still had a bit of work to do and I really enjoy that work. On my drive back to New Orleans, I began to contemplate good and bad things that happened to me during the week, because it's Tuesday-- we have house meetings on Tuesday nights that generally begin with our highs and lows. High: I have five days of planting projects IN A ROW! Low:... wait a second, swimming through oil was messed up. Really messed up.

Full disclosure: I didn't actually say "messed up" in my head.

The more I thought about it, the more angry and sad I got. This is almost definitely not oil from that epic oil spill several years ago that is still producing tar balls and mats down along the Gulf. It's far more likely that this was just a leak from someone's boat, or an example of one of my biggest fears in South Louisiana: some slow leak of an oil pipeline that no one is watching.

Was swimming through oil good for me? Probably not. One of the few things I'm cynical about in this world though is health risks. We risk our lives every day by exposing ourselves to highly processed foods, cell phones, plastics, and sunlight. This alone will not give me cancer.

Just nightmares.

I'm sad that this is the reality of this environment, and so many others. I'm sad that I have to put myself in situations like this, that are questionable to my health, to do some good work. I'm really, really sad and angry and frustrated and helpless about how much we rely on oil and gas in the world. I mean, I'm really guilty (two roadtrips across Canada, a roadtrip around the eastern US, a roadtrip to get to Louisiana, even just driving to the site today was an hour to Thibodaux and another 45 minutes to get to the park where we planted; I've flown once a month every month since December till this month, and will be getting on a plane again next month).

Witnessing human impacts on this planet is exhausting me. It is really hard to convince myself to get up and work when it feels like I'm fighting a losing battle. What's easy here, is to get completely overwhelmed. Things are bad here. Really bad. And not just here.

All I can do is focus on the little things. Like each blade of bullrush now planted along the banks of Blind River. And all of the bitter panicum, phragmites and cordgrass we're putting into the ground on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain tomorrow, and all of the sand live oaks going in the ground later this week. And all of the people who have listened to me talk about the wetlands here in Louisiana, and here on this blog. Thanks for reading this. Change won't happen all at once, but I can still add a little bit at a time, and so can you.

workplace hazards

I've talked a little bit about my grass plantings with NRCS and the local Soil and Water Conservation District. I love them. This is one of my favorite things I get to do. The ground is very soft so it's incredibly easy to plant grasses and rushes, basically just punching them into the mud with my bare hands. And it involves being in the water all day. I love being in the water.

Plus, it's really, really effective over a short period of time, which is very encouraging in the face of some very challenging, discouraging work dealing with Louisiana's coastal issues.

People ask, probably jokingly, if I ever see alligators when I'm out in the water planting. Yep. I do. They are pretty harmless though. One of my first grass plantings in the fall, a gator just kind of floated along the shore with us, never coming closer than about 40 feet. Everyone down here tells me they're actually pretty calm animals unless people go out of their way to agitate them, like on TV. Swamp People kind of has the same reputation here as Jersey Shore does at home (we don't like it).

Last week's planting also featured a little gator, just pacing back and forth across the canal at the end of the day while we waited for the boat to come back and pick us up.

But this week's planting was more hazardous than either of those. We planted bull rush in the Intracoastal Canal, launching from Larose, planting along the canal on the other side of the slim barrier to Lake Salvador. This map shows directions from Larose to Jean Lafitte, which is super indirect, but if you draw a straight line between those two towns, it gives you an idea of where we were--


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The big hazard du jour was not alligators or bull sharks (which is apparently also a possibility no one told me about until this week), it was barges and freight ships passing by, creating a very strong current. We were planting on a narrow, shallow shelf, right along the area that is dredged for these enormous ships. The planting will help protect the canal as well as the lake, helping reduce and prevent erosion that could lead to those bodies of water connecting and becoming quite difficult to maintain as a shipping route. I'm a pretty strong swimmer, but wandering too close to the edge of the shelf could have spelled the end.


Instead of being an alligator on the horizon, this week it was just big cargo ships and barges.

Thankfully, a non-issue. We stayed safe all day and didn't lose anyone. It was definitely interesting planting alongside big barges though. It reminded me how small I am, and how small what I'm doing is. However, I still believe that the small stuff matters. Bullrush grows in very densely, protecting the shoreline and withstanding strong currents and even a little bit of salt water. I'll probably be able to go back in July and check the progress. Every little bit of conservation is exciting to me!

Every day is Earth Day!

Because I treat pretty much every day like Earth Day, I decided to treat April 22 like a holiday. I didn't work from home, I didn't take my work to another place, I didn't work in the evening... I just took a whole day to enjoy the beautiful world around me.


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I drove east on Highway 90 until I found a beach. That took me through some wetlands, pine forests, and small towns. I also saw one of the best signs of all time, that I regret not stopping to take a picture of: "Scenic Bypass to Space". It's referring to the NASA Stennis Space Center, but I still thought it was funny.


I drove into Mississippi and discovered Pass Christian, a small beach town. There was hardly anyone on the beach, so I parked, and I planted myself by the warm, shallow, quiet water of the Gulf of Mexico. I explored a little further in the afternoon to check out Gulfport and Biloxi, but Pass Christian wins. I'll go back.

The next, I got back to celebrating Earth Day Every Day with a grass planting with NRCS. We planted cord grass in several badly eroded areas in St. Louis Canal in the Pointe-au-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. This was the thickest, sickest mud I've been in so far. Smells varied from methane (farts) to sulfur (rotten eggs), and the bottom was so soft that I spent most of the day wading around waist deep in swirling, dark, murky boue pourrie.

It was awesome.

This project is especially exciting because there's a good chance that I'll have the opportunity to go back and check on its progress in July, before I'm done here.

The funny part about spending the entire day in the water and being totally soaked in mud, is that I had a presentation to give back in New Orleans East, and had no time to stop and change, much less shower. The good news was that it was a fairly informal talk about the wetlands, so the group was pretty amused that I was wearing the very environment that I was teaching them about. Thank goodness the talk was outside, so no one had to smell me too much.

I just love the world around me, and I'm glad I get to enjoy it in so many different places and ways.

(These were the first 350ish or so miles of 900+ that I would drive in the past week, but more on my Lafayette adventures next time!)

taking flight

I want to tell you about my flight in a Cessna at the end of March. Bayou Blue hosted a group from the Presbyterian Hunger Program to talk about some of the environmental and food issues faced by South Louisiana. We had a great visit with some really wonderful national staff of PC(USA). They came to my little bayou church, and then we were off to the local airport in Houma for a tour of the wetlands by air.

I had never been in a small plane before, much less had I taken an air tour of the disappearing wetlands. It was really difficult to see the coast in such rough shape. During Paddle Bayou Lafourche I learned that coastal erosion has slowed down, but only because the easiest land to erode is already gone.


Nature does not make straight lines. Those oil and gas exploration and pipeline canals invite salt water intrusion and quick erosion. Louisiana is terrible at enforcing environmental regulations. The companies are required to fill in or plug those canals when they are done. They don't.


You can see where the pipelines were, and what it did to the landscape. This used to all be wetlands, not open water. This was really hard to see.


We passed over some healthy swamp at the end, which was a little bit encouraging, but also really tough to see the incredible contrast between what is thriving and what is gone.

After we were all back on the ground, we traveled to Pointe-au-Chenes to see some of the problems from the water with my favorite wetlands hosts, Donald and Theresa of the Pointe-au-Chien tribe. We went out on their boat, not even too far from the little strip of town that's left. I've been meaning to share these two images with you for a while--





You can see the same tree from slightly different angles, but about a year and a half of erosion completely removed that tree from being on solid land. That's not high tide in the lower picture. That land is gone. It's open water.

Coastal erosion and wetlands degradation is frightening in South Louisiana. I'm really glad that I can be a small part of continuing to share that story.

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Paddle Bayou Lafourche

I just got back from my first overnight canoe trip since 2007. OH MAN IT WAS AWESOME. My friend Lindsey joined me for a really great long weekend on the bayou. We paddled 52 miles over 4 days through people's back yards, enjoying local food, conversation, flora, fauna, and music. 

Paddle Bayou Lafourche is an annual event put on by the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, a great organization that I have enjoyed many good resources from this year as I learn and teach about wetlands issues in the region. National Estuary Programs came out of the EPA's Clean Water Act in the late 80s. At home in New Jersey is another one-- Barnegat Bay Partnership.

Thursday, from Donaldsonville to Napoleonville: It was a tough first day. Paddling down the bayou on a windy day is much like paddling in a wind tunnel... in the wrong direction. We faced gusts up to 20mph. I hadn't been in a canoe in almost seven years, so my arms were a bit out of practice to begin with, but this was rough for everyone. We paddled almost 18 miles, about 11.5 of which were before lunch. We felt a little hopeless, but we did it, and enjoyed a good dinner and glorious night of camping at Madewood Plantation.

Friday, Napoleonville to Thibodaux: The wind died down, but the forecast remained questionable. We lucked out with only a little bit of rain on and off as we continued to explore the bayou. We landed at the Jean Lafitte museum in town, having done just shy of 16 miles.

Saturday, Thibodaux to Raceland: We launched from Nicholls State University, just below Jean Lafitte, because there's a weir in the bayou between the two and the BTNEP staff probably didn't want to deal with all of the idiots who would have tried to paddle down it. Lindsey and I finally got into a rhythm, finishing ahead of a lot of people who doubted we would survive the first day. We also finished just a few minutes ahead of torrential downpour and hail. Right before we landed after about 15.5 miles, Lindsey decided to follow through with a wild idea she came up with early in the day-- yoga on the bayou, or "bayoga" as we came to call it. She decided to do a headstand while I balanced the canoe:





Sunday, Raceland to Lockport: Just a short 5.5 miles to finish up. BTNEP's Water Quality Coordinator, Andrew, was without a paddling partner for the last day and asked to join us. Lindsey enjoyed sitting in a chair in the middle of the canoe asking lots of questions about the bayou. We had paddled beside him and his canoe partner Michael, BTNEP's Invasive Species Coordinator, the three days before, peppering them with questions about soil science and ecology, so it was cool to have him on board answering our environmental questions the entire time without worrying about keeping up with him.



The day started off very foggy, but we once again beat the rain after a late decision to follow through with the final stretch at all. The trip ends in Lockport, because any further south and we'd start running into enormous ships. Just before we landed, I had Andrew balance the canoe while Lindsey took a picture of my bayoga efforts (obviously going for a tree):




It was so nice to go out on an adventure for a few days. This was technically work-related for me, so I did spend some time contemplating Bayou Lafourche, which is the main source of drinking water for the region--

• A few weeks ago, BTNEP hosted a massive bayou cleanup, which usually involves hundreds of volunteers along 106 miles of Bayou Lafourche (we only paddled 52 miles). They pick up thousands of pieces of garbage ranging from cigarette butts (please please please stop throwing cigarette butts out the windows) to plastic bottles (please please please recycle those and/or stop drinking bottled water when it's totally unnecessary) to tires, toilets, and couches. Full frightening details from last year here. I will say it again: this is the main source of drinking water for the region, for tens of thousands of people.
• The first day, as we paddled straight into 20mph gusts, it was all too clear a picture of how easily salt water flows back up the bayous in nothing more than a stiff wind. When the wind wasn't blowing, the water was completely slack. No current. Tough to paddle, but also tough for it to remain fresh, flowing off the Mississippi at Donaldsonville.
• As we paddled under local bridges, cars drove over our heads. Some of the bridges were grates. As I felt the rainwater drip off one onto my legs and head, I shuddered at the thought of leaky cars just letting fluids straight into... the drinking water supply.
• We wound past countless signs warning of gas and oil pipeline crossings. Again... slow leaks into the drinking water, distinctly possible.

Plus, let's consider the greater watershed with the help of the Department of the Interior's Streamer Tool. Here's the portion of Bayou Lafourche that we paddled:


And here is the watershed of the Mississippi River, down to Bayou Lafourche:


That's 31 states, plus two Canadian provinces, full of agricultural runoff, fluids from leaky beat up cars, cigarette butts from careless people, and other awful things.

I would really encourage you to think about your relationship with your home watershed, whatever it may be. Water is so precious.

I did not spend the entire trip having nightmares, but the whole awareness angle that BTNEP is playing by hosting this event on this particular bayou definitely worked. The vast majority of it was relaxing and wonderful. There were at least six different kinds of bread pudding served over the course of the trip. There was a man sitting on his fishing dock playing his accordion for the paddlers. There was bayoga and shenanigans with Lindsey and other people around us. There were blooming black locust trees, and swaying cutgrass, ducks and geese and swallows and red winged blackbirds, and lots of people waving hello and speaking French and smiling and many, many other beautiful things.

If you go to New Orleans, you ought to go see the Mardi Gras (and the wetlands)

On Saturday, I went to Baton Rouge for a meeting of Together Louisiana, a group of churches and civic organizations taking on all sorts of political issues including Louisiana's absurdly high rate of incarceration, the utter madness of the poorly regulated payday loan industry, health care, higher education, and... wetlands and environmental problems. SO many good conversations to be had about the state of the state of Louisiana. Two of the big ones for me-- a breakout session I attended on the environmental issues (you know, kind of the reason I attended the meeting) and an address from a retired Army general.

General Russel Honoré spoke boldly about leadership and fostering a culture of preparedness, as well as our tolerance of the nonsense going on in our government. Ultimately, he is concerned with all of the shady business of poor leadership allowing for Louisiana's natural resources not to be stolen, but to be given away, leaving the state vulnerable to a host of disasters. The point he made that rang clearest to me: Louisiana is a top oil producing state. Why isn't it a top state for education? or healthcare? Why is it among the lowest ranked states in most every social and economic indicator?

Encouraging: you should have heard the "AMEN"s and "PREACH!"es from the crowd. Discouraging: why is Louisiana so far behind in all of these ways when it's been so far ahead in domestic oil and gas extraction for the past 75+ years?

I'm still pondering this gross disconnect.

The breakout session I attended also impacted me, but additionally had a more fun effect on my weekend. My original plan was to drive to Bayou Blue and stay with my bosses so I wouldn't have to wake up so early on Sunday. However, the Wetlands and the Environment session I attended was lead by John Barry, an author, who in addition to his heavy involvement with the policies and politics of coastal restoration, was also the King of Krewe du Vieux in that evening's Mardi Gras parade in the French Quarter. I knew my housemates were all going. Meeting Mr. Barry motivated me to drive back to New Orleans and go to my first Mardi Gras parade.

His talk was really good for me to hear, because he focused on the more political side of coastal conservation that I have not spent as much time focusing on. Did you know that it is actually written into the oil companies' canal permits that they are required to fill those canals back in after their pipes are laid? There are a ton of studies from reputable sources like the US Geological Survey, the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, and higher ups who have worked for the oil companies that those canals are the leading cause of coastal erosion. Yet, for all sorts of horrifyingly corrupt reasons, those companies have managed to not follow through with back filling or even plugging the ends of the canals. An area the size of the state of Delaware has been lost in the past 75 years, with more disappearing every hour of every day. Instead of the companies, who have been proven to be directly responsible for this and are even legally required to fix this, the taxpayers get to cover the millions upon millions of dollars being dumped into levee construction and other coastal protections that won't matter if the wetlands are gone.

Trees are beautiful and all, but my job can get pretty depressing.

I spoke with Mr. Barry privately about conservation issues after his talk, and also managed to sneak in a question about how one manages to get the attention of a Mardi Gras King to get him to throw stuff (beads and other trinkets are traditionally thrown from floats in these parades). He suggested I stand close to the street, because he is still recovering from a rotator cuff injury.

So I went back to New Orleans, not because I love crowds and crazy parades, but because I am excited about the carnival season and taking in as much of the tradition and culture as I can while I'm here. My housemates and I caught a bus down to the French Quarter (the street cars weren't running as often) and managed to find a fairly uncrowded section of curb on Royal Street. The Krewe du Vieux is one of the few that runs through the Vieux Carré (another name for the French Quarter, meaning "old square"), and is known for being not family friendly.

The crowd was loud but I hung in there to see the King. Krewes often choose kings or queens who are famous for something, so it was pretty cool to me to see someone recognized for their contributions to the coast. The krewe's website talks about how Mr. Barry has worked hard to raise awareness and take action against the government for allowing such a mess to happen to Louisiana's coast. It also points out how Governor Jindal excused John Barry from his seat on the Flood Protection Authority board.


Overall, I'm glad I went to the parade. It was lewd but fun, with amazing brass bands and a lot of clever political statements snuck in, like this float featuring birds covered in oil with words like "incompetence" and "justice" floating around--



I loved the music and even managed to score some beads and trinkets (fully clothed, thank you, I'm pretty sure the flashing thing is mostly myth). It was a really cool turnaround to see someone celebrated for standing up for the coast, both at a formal meeting of activists and in a rowdy setting in which the message was probably lost on most people, but not me. When the King rode by, I was too busy yelling stuff about the wetlands to take a picture or catch a trinket-- he was tossing cups. So here is a picture from the Times-Picayune instead!

busy weekend

ON FRIDAY, I planted trees for the first time in 2014! It was a cool morning but warmed up nicely, and it was so so wonderful to get outside after a chilly week that included two very cooped up "sneaux days". (Hint: it didn't actually snow.)

The site was as the back of my favorite park that I've found in Louisiana so far, one of the Jean Lafitte National Park sites (there are six in the state), the Barataria Preserve. We took a short boat ride to the site, way at the back of the park. The land is actually owned by the school districts of two parishes, Jefferson and St. Charles. The districts lease the land to hunters to raise money for the schools. We put over 300 bald cypress trees in the ground to help fight the invasive Chinese Tallow tree. After the cypress trees have a while to take hold, a team will go back and kill the tallow trees, which are disrupting the ecosystem there.


a hunting blind on the flotat; we planted along a ridge between the flotat and the bayou

ON SATURDAY, I took a few friends on an adventure to Baton Rouge to try on wedding dresses. There was a store there that also has a branch in New Jersey, which will make it much easier logistically if I found something I liked. Three of my housemates (Anna Leigh, Alyssa and Hannah) and my friend from the Episcopal version of YAV (Lindsey) all came along for the ride, promising snarky and silly commentary and help. I tried on a few ridiculous gowns that are nothing at all like me, just for laughs, but we did eventually narrow it down to a likely contender. Then we all tried on funny dresses just because.


Many thanks to Anna Leigh, Hannah, Alyssa and Lindsey for help and laughter

ON SUNDAY,  I woke up early and traveled to Bayou Blue for church, and then to Morgan City for another church service which I was leading. I preached about environmental justice. It went pretty well. The church has a Confederate fort on its grounds. I explored town a little bit afterward. It was very quiet and empty, and reminded me a lot of different rust belt towns I've visited before. There was a lot of truck traffic, which makes sense for it being a pretty busy port, but hardly anyone else walking or driving down the streets.

It was a very foggy, humid morning along the Atchafalaya River. My first time seeing it! And the little red lighthouse across the river in Berwick.

Beasts of the Southern Wild

I was feeling a little run down last night, so I decided to curl up in my bed early with my laptop and watch a movie. I had just received a copy of Beasts of the Southern Wild, which I finally ordered last week after hearing about it for the dozenth or so time while working down the bayou. I had only heard criticism from the communities I've been working with, so I watched the movie with a pretty steep bias.

Ok, this is the part where I'm going to start discussing the film with reckless abandon, so if you are highly offended by spoilers and haven't seen it, go away (for now, I hope you'll come back another time to talk about this and other things). If you haven't seen it, I'd be more than happy to lend you my copy. Just send me your address.

Here, I'll stick a map in here so you don't have to see more words if you don't want to:


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So that long, skinny northeast-southwest line is the road to Isle de Jean Charles (the northish-southish oriented thing at the southwestern end of the road), one of the communities I'm working with through the First People's Conservation Council. It has recently been rebuilt, but it's still just a narrow two lane road with no kind of buffer on either side of it to protect it from high or rough water. (In fact, there was a temporary road put on the southern side of it, that is being removed-- why? Why spend the extra time and money to remove something that might potentially help? Sigh, bureaucracy.) And there is definitely plenty of water there, since various levees and flood walls have completely destroyed the wetlands as well as the island itself. Pointe-aux-Chenes, which I've mentioned once or twice, is what the road connects Isle de Jean Charles to. (And Montegut, just north of Pointe-aux-Chenes, is where the movie was filmed.)

Isle de Jean Charles is the place that bayou village Charles Doucet, which its citizens call The Bathtub, is based on. And while I think the movie did an adequate job of capturing the some of the joy and camaraderie that exists in little bayou camps, I could immediately see why the people of these real-life communities take exception to the movie's portrayal of them. The people of The Bathtub live in absolute squalor.

There were a lot of things I liked about the movie. For one, it's just beautifully filmed-- yes, literally filmed in a world where most major movies are made digitally. I like that the actors and actresses were mostly, if not all, from south Louisiana (and for many, this was their first time acting).

There's sort of this whimsical, mystical take on climate change, the melting ice caps, and the destruction of the bayou, and the main character, Hushpuppy, says a lot of things about the interconnectedness of the universe. "The whole universe depends on everything fitting together just right."


I liked the honesty of the very sad, difficult, complicated story line of the storm's aftermath: this community trying to fend for itself by building a floating camp and blowing up the levee that was keeping their village under water; the fact that the mandatory evacuation enforced several weeks after the hurricane, with emphasis on the "force" part of "enforced"; the one way bus tickets issued to miscellaneous towns around the US. The storm in question wasn't called Katrina, but certainly carried a lot of her baggage.

I liked the inclusion of salt water intrusion, a subtle nod to the very real environmental problems of this region. "Two weeks later, everything started to die." Here's my picture from September of trees killed off by salt water in that neck of the bayou:


There was a lot about this movie that gave me mixed feelings. Like I said, the film portrays bayou camp dwellers as living in filth. I don't think that was especially true to real life, nor do I think it was relevant to the story. I'm sure there are some people who live in run down places amidst random junk, far beyond the grid, but that's not the norm. I've been in some homes that have an eclectic collection of things, but none of them have been so dirty.

I was also frustrated by the idea of the freedom of poverty. I don't think it was especially realistic. Yes, there is certainly some freedom for a culture that is not bound by bank accounts, but I suspect there are way more challenges than benefits (oh hey, super timely article "It Is Expensive to Be Poor"!). I'm not quite sure how Wink gets to the hospital, and back. And what about food? There are plenty of scenes that involve eating, whole chickens put on grills, plentiful seafood, hot peppers growing on the floating camp... in one scene, Hushpuppy is shown munching on some leaf. What about when the wetlands are killed by pollution or salt water? How did they get fresh water? What about oil? The BP Horizon disaster happened when this movie was being filmed. All kinds of environmental problems contribute to challenging food security. When you don't have a bank account, you can't just go buy what you can't catch.

The end scene with the community walking down the road to The Bathtub, which is the actual road to Isle de Jean Charles, and the waves splashing up across it... eerie. And so real. It doesn't even take a storm, just a stiff wind or a full moon. These are communities just about ready to fall off the earth, and with practically no attention or sympathy. I mean, in the movie, the authorities didn't notice the people still in The Bathtub until after they blew up a levee to let the water out. It took a literal explosion for anyone to check on them. That was probably relatively close to reality, because as it is, there is little to no local, state or federal government assistance for these precious places, or the people in them.

I guess that's where other people step in, take exception to an otherwise beautiful movie, and try their best to raise some awareness and get some help to these communities. There's a lot of good going on down here, but it seems there are infinite challenges for each positive step taken. I know I am barely scratching the surface. But, Hushpuppy said it, late in the film, "I see that I'm a little piece of a big, big universe. And that makes things right."

success!

I don't write nearly often enough about my adventures as a NRCS Earth Team Volunteer. It's been a phenomenal experience, and I love love love it. It's pretty awesome that my position as a YAV allows me to keep volunteering with them, as part of my work but also in my free time when I can find it.

Today's adventure was especially poignant. The landscape we were investigating had such a great story to tell.


We (two NRCS employees, a Fish and Wildlife employee, and me) took an airboat out into Bayou Sauvage to monitor some vegetation, aka check on a few grass plantings that happened about three months ago. These are not plantings I did, but it's exciting to know that this is what some of my plantings might accomplish. But first, we look backwards--


Bayou Sauvage used to be a lot of cypress swamp. That cypress swamp in particular was heavily harvested to build New Orleans... two or more centuries ago. The stumps are still all over the place. Many have sunken, but the ground was a lot more solid at this particular stop, and there were stumps and knees sticking up everywhere. Even in an airboat, it was tough to get through here.


After many years of logging and then lots of other human activities (development of levees and canals that change hydrologic patterns, among other shady business... humans are the worst), this area became open water. Tons of erosion happened, and expanded out from there to create a lot of other islands and open water areas where there once was good healthy swampland.

Something humans have done to try to fix this problem is use recycled Christmas trees to help catch sediments, reduce erosion and rebuild marshes. It took some trial and error-- there were a few busted up old cribs nearby from a less successful iteration of the project, but now trees are bundled together and airlifted by helicopter. And it's working! The circles show piles of dead Christmas trees that were laid down in the water here. The arrow points to an area that you can't even see the old trees, because the grasses have taken over successfully after enough sediment built up to sustain the ecosystem.


And finally, back to the present. These grasses were planted about three months ago. Grasses are one of the first steps to protecting an area from erosion and building it back up, first into health marshes, which can later progress into healthy swamps*. Here, people planted bullrushes in particular, but I've been planting cord grass and there's this other horrific sounding thing called cut grass that sometimes gets used (called such because it has sharp edges and will cut you). They've taken like little champs, anchoring soil, helping catch more soil and expand the area, creating more habitat for migratory birds and a healthier ecosystem now and to come. It's so exciting to see the progress in such a short time, and to know that I have done this to places. There are places in southern Louisiana that will probably hopefully be just as successful in the coming months and years. That is really, really exciting to know.


Watch out world. I'm coming to conservation you. Just as soon as my hands get warm. It was surprisingly chilly for south Louisiana. Everyone was complaining but I was having a blast wearing a hoodie AND a windbreaker!


*Fun fact! The difference between marshes and swamps: marsh implies grassy wetlands, swamp implies forested wetlands.

House.

My mom left this morning after a wonderful, whirlwind three day visit. We wandered around the French Quarter, took a trip out to New Orleans East to see Bayou Sauvage, tried on wedding dresses, ate lots of southern Louisiana food (including vegetarian jambalaya (!!!) for me and a lot of different seafood for her), and volunteered at Program of Hope.

We also thoroughly enjoyed the music and legacy of Professor Longhair. (!!!!!) I discovered his music in college-- better late than never. A friend put "Big Chief" on a mix for my birthday one year, and I have walked this earth nearly every day since with that piano riff stuck in my head.



Mom discovered his music on Thursday night when I took her to Fess Fest at Tipitina's, featuring Hugh Laurie and Joe Jackson and many other very, very talented individuals (including a group of high school students with some serious chops). Better later than neverer!


"There are at least 100 people in this room and 10,000 in this city who can do this better than me. Well, *!@# 'em. I got here first." -Hugh Laurie

Seriously, amazing concert. Every musician, every song was just awesome. It's a little disorienting at first to hear Hugh Laurie speak with his native English accent rather than his very well faked-for-TV New Jersey one, but he is a fantastic host and a talented musician. It was very clear to the room that for him, playing Fess's music at Tipitina's was a boyhood dream realized. I love seeing musicians who are just elated to be playing.

Something else cool about the concert: proceeds went to the Tipitina's Foundation, which supports the preservation of Louisiana's incredible music culture. They run a lot of education programs for youth, but they're also partnered with Project Homecoming, where three of my housemates work, to restore the house that Fess lived in, where his daughter and grandson were living until Katrina wrecked it. By this spring, they'll be back in the house, with some renovated space to live in, some renovated space to rent out and some renovated space to serve as a Fess museum. I'm really excited about that this will all be completed while I'm still in New Orleans to see it.

In the meantime, Mom and I decided to go see it as it is now, especially because my housemate Anna Leigh is one of the people working on the house, and could stop and give us a tour. It's coming along great, and they were able to save and refurbish some of the original pieces, including a few windows and the brickwork of the fireplaces. Touring everyone else's job placements the first day I was in New Orleans, I saw a big mantle and his front door sitting in storage over at the Project Homecoming headquarters, waiting to be fixed up and put back where they belong. Kind of cool.





It's exciting to see things being rebuilt. It's also really exciting to take part in it in some small way (so selfless, buying that ticket to hear Hugh Laurie play Professor Longhair's song. What a sacrifice.). (I'm hoping to go in with Anna Leigh sometime soon and lend a hand on one of my days off, too.) It's very cool to see the full circle of things.

This isn't from Tipitina's this week, but it'll do:

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Something tells me that if Grandma Day sees this, she'll tell me I'm playing with my hair too much, but it was a beautiful breezy morning down by the Mississippi River!

Spartina alterniflora

BEST DAY EVER AHHHH IT WAS AWESOME!



I was really excited and barely slept on Wednesday night, last noticing the clock around midnight... ugh. But, at 4:45 sharp, I was leaving New Orleans, heading to a USDA Service Center in Thibodaux, just over an hour southwest of the city. I found it (remember that time I was stuck in traffic in Raceland? That's how to get there from NO!), and joined two employees of the local soil and water conservation district (not exactly my beloved NRCS, but the local government cooperators) to plant cord grass (not exactly trees, but ok, stay with me here, it was awesome) in Little Lake (not exactly a little lake, more like a half hour boat ride after an hour drive south from Thibodaux, but still, this was awesome) with a team of European hipster volunteers (who were not at all dressed or prepared for the work we were doing) and an alligator (who never came closer than about 20 feet but hung out for the entire afternoon).

None of that sounds especially great, but I assure you, I had a fantastic day.



We were met by a producer who provided us with about 40 sacks of about 50-60 plugs of smooth cord grass each. We launched from a canal at the back of a sugarcane farm in Cut Off. It took a few trips to deliver all of the grass and people to the shoreline where we were planting (if you zoom out, it's down the canal east, then just north about halfway up that curved shore).


View Larger Map 

Planting in open water is kind of cool. For the most part, the ground is just soft and mucky, so we just kind of grabbed the little root ball of the grass and punched it into the ground. Even the harder ground, or the areas where more shells had accumulated, it was still pretty easy with the help of a thing called a dibble bar:

We started the morning spread out, dividing and conquering a swath of shore line. I had a really nice time just swimming around planting grass on my own. Shortly before lunch, the girl from Denmark noticed a six foot long alligator spying on her work. We ate lunch together on the boat near that spot, hoping to scare the gator away. It worked, but we decided to work closer together to finish the work. This was a good decision, because the alligator came back. It just sat and watched at a distance for a while, slowly closing that distance and making us all a little nervous. There was much discussion about how quickly alligators can move and what their hunting habits are like. It seemed like it was just hanging out, waiting for us to freak out and abandon our weakest herd member.

But we didn't, and nothing terrible happened, just a beautiful day in a warm lake with a cool breeze, planting cord grass. I love doing conservation. It's been really wonderful talking with people, hearing stories, and dreaming up how we can make a difference, but it's another thing altogether to go out and actually do something. I'm pretty excited that I've been able to do so much in just my first month here. It's hard to believe that I arrived exactly a month ago today!

Presenting...

today's adventure: my first presentation!

I got to spend my evening with people from Brigantine, NJ (woo hoo practically my people!) and Murrysville, PA who are currently staying and working in New Orleans with Project Homecoming. One of the houses they are currently working on, under the good supervision of one of my housemates, Anna Leigh, is the home of Professor Longhair. I think that is spectacular. (One of the goals of Project Homecoming is to rebuild communities, not just houses, and what better way to help the community but fix up one of their hometown heroes' homes? Also I think his daughter was still living there before it got beat up by Katrina.)


Now that you have some great background music...

I was worried about the presentation because 1. I am excited about and interested in just about everything, so it's hard to decide what's actually important and interesting for other people who live outside of my brain; 2. It is difficult to convey the dire environmental crisis happening in southern Louisiana's wetlands by walking through a relatively healthy marsh just outside of New Orleans. We talked about how these landforms are made, why they matter, and why they are falling apart. Those were the main points I wanted to cover, and I talked about them all, so I feel ok about it.

I received some good feedback though, so it went all right. I was even able to answer almost all of the questions! Except for this one: how big is the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico (the area in which nothing can grow or live because of all of the pollution that accumulates at the bottom of the enormous Mississippi River watershed)? Which I am now reading up on... it's awful. It varies throughout the year, but averages between the size of the state of Connecticut and the state of New Jersey.

...

That's a terrible note to end on. But a few more people understand what's going on down here, and at the end of our walk at Bayou Sauvage, there were a few alligators hanging out in the canal, so everyone came away pretty excited. I was talking to people about birds by then, but I'll try to get pictures next time.

Tomorrow's adventure: traveling south with NRCS to plant trees! Along bayous! In the water?
 
This was the picture they sent me when I asked about appropriate attire for such field work, not realizing we would not be working on solid ground...

Bayou Sauvage

I've never had a particularly meaningful relationship with birds. I mean, they're cool, and I like hearing them in the background, but I prefer to walk around with my Field Guide to North American Trees book because they stay still while I identify them.

I remember one time several years ago going to the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge down near Atlantic City with Mike. It was well before we were dating, and he just wanted to go take pictures of birds. It was a gray, drizzly fall morning, and I was happy to go along for the ride and get some fresh air down in the wetlands and not really pay any attention to the birds. I learned that day that Mike knows a lot about birds, and I have subsequently directed about 97% of all bird questions and comments to him ever since.

Fast forward a few years till Mike, Katie and I were driving from Irwin, PA to Walpole Island, ON last summer. We stopped at some sort of wildlife or bird refuge in Ohio, on Lake Erie. There was a bird watching room in the visitors' center, with a big window overlooking a little area with a village of bird houses and feeders. There were a lot of birds. It was rather noisy. So I was testing Mike--

"What kind of bird is that?" Red winged black bird.

"What kind of bird is that?" Some sort of finch.

"What kind of bird is that?" Red winged black bird.

"No, the one with the yellow on its wing." Red winged black bird.

"No, the one with yellow on its wing." Red winged black bird.




So that about sums up my relationship with birds.

Yesterday I traveled east to Bayou Sauvage, just to look around and get familiar with the park. I'm giving my first presentation next week to a group of volunteers visiting New Orleans with Project Homecoming, where several of my roommates work, and I was asked that when weather permits, to actually bring the groups to the wetlands. I think that's a lovely idea, especially since Bayou Sauvage is only about 15 minutes away from where the volunteers stay during their time of service. I was met by a professor from UNO who knows a lot about the area. It was great to have a guide.


The park is really nice. There are a few different places to park and hike, with well maintained boardwalks through the wetlands and paths along the levees. I'm a little intimidated by the size of the group (next week's is about 30 people, but in the future it could be up to 90)-- mostly worried whether or not I'll be able to really present anything to such a large contingent out in the field effectively. But I'm excited to show them the actual environment I'm talking about.

Bayou Sauvage was hit hard by Katrina, taking out a lot of older cypress and live oak trees, but it's a pretty healthy ecosystem. There have been various planting and mulching projects, among other conservation efforts, but really, nature will heal itself over time if we just leave it alone. Say it with me-- humans are the worst! But it is in pretty good shape, and is a really good look at that healing process.

Before leaving the refuge, the professor and I stopped by another trail area that's actually an impressive bird rookery. I was amazed at how many birds we saw just from this one little stretch of boardwalk. Some of them looked familiar, like things I've seen in the wetlands at home-- little herons and egrets, some sand piper kind of things (again, you can see how good I am at birding).

Apparently the place will be full of birds in November and December as they migrate every which way (you know, or south). I might need to investigate. There's a train line that runs along the back edge of the refuge, and a freight train passed through as I was leaving yesterday. Watching all of the birds jump up and circle before realizing it was just a harmless train was pretty incredible. This was the first time I really recognized the diversity and beauty of birds. Doesn't mean I'm going to learn how to identify them, because they still move too fast for me, but it was just a really beautiful moment that this blog entry isn't going to do justice, so I'm going to stop trying to describe it now.

Barataria and Jean Lafitte

I'm pretty sure "Jean Lafitte" is the most French sounding thing I can currently say, although I did learn a new French word yesterday in writing (I don't know how it's pronounced)-- coquille, which  means seashell (the first people used to build mounds out of broken shells, and there are a few places in the area that still bear this name).

Jean Lafitte was a pirate in Barataria Bay in the late 1700s/early 1800s, who helped Jackson win the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, using smuggled goods and the knowledge of the pending British attack (they tried to bribe him to help them... ha).

I spent the past two days in the town Jean Lafitte meeting with groups from the Christian Community Development Association. Members are from all over the US and Canada and are currently having their annual conference in New Orleans. The trip to Jean Lafitte to talk about the wetlands with Kris, Dick, the town mayor (and me?) was one of many options they had as side trips. From what I gathered, it was not most people's first choice, but I would say the vast majority were happy they ended up with us touring the wetlands.

Except for the man yesterday who interrupted us mid-discussion to ask when we were going on the boat, because he didn't come for a political discussion...

But everyone else was interested and engaged and excited to see the cypress swamp and hear the stories. And then there is this little guy--



 

Jean Lafitte is a pretty cool town, with a really great mayor who is working hard not only for his residents, but the residents of four other nearby, unincorporated towns. Has fought for funding for structures to protect the town, even when the government keeps telling them they are not worth it. He secured funding for an affordable healthcare clinic that is also studying and caring for the long term effects of the oil disaster. He won a grant to build a beautiful library, senior center, and meeting facility with a small museum attached in an effort to prove to the state and country that his town is "worth it". Members of his family have served the role of justice of the peace for over a century, for free, just so the town would have services.



Nothing like spending a beautiful day advocating wetlands and meeting an actual honest politician to give you a little hope.

peace

I have a few quiet minutes in my house and a few loud thoughts in my head.

I have nothing to say that hasn't been said about today's date, so I'm going to reflect on peace instead.

When I asked my Presbytery for support for YAV, a friend recommended I apply for the Peacemaking Grant. At first, I wasn't sure how that was relevant since I'm working with wetlands and natural resource conservation. But as I stared at the application and thought on it for a while, I thought about Wangari Maathai. I read her memoir Unbowed as I began grad school, and learned how her love of trees earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, the first awarded to an environmentalist (she also did work seeking gender equality, but founding the Green Belt Movement in Kenya was her better known work). My love of trees hasn't quite gotten me that far, but I think there's something to be said for the connection between peacemaking efforts and environmental conservation.

If we are not at peace with our natural environments, it will be difficult to be at peace with each other in the future when we are struggling over the availability of natural resources.

In southern Louisiana, people are already at odds with the environment, which may or may not even be considered natural anymore. Today I started reading John McPhee's The Control of Nature, which I snagged off the geography department's free book table probably six years ago, and forgot about until I was debating what books to bring to New Orleans. It's about the Army Corps of Engineers (who the people down bayou HATE) and how they changed the hydrology and fluvial geomorphology* of southern Louisiana by building locks and levees in the middle part of the last century. So there's that ongoing battle to keep the Mississippi River flowing exactly where and how the powers that be want it to.

Then, of course, there's the wetlands. I may or may not have mentioned how broken the people's relationship is with that space.

So, as I'm thinking about peace today, I'm thinking my role in the world as a peacemaker and how that relates to the people and places I meet.





*You KNOW I just like throwing around the word "geomorphology".

I'll never be blue, my dreams come true, on Bayou Blue!

Yes, I'm aware that Linda Ronstadt sings Blue Bayou, but I'm working in and around Bayou Blue, LA!

Yesterday was just awesome. The whole house visited my church, a VERY friendly, welcoming, small, rural congregation who worships early and has a brunch feast afterward every Sunday about an hour away from our house in New Orleans. I enjoyed biscuits and grits and fruit salad, and I survived many hugs and lots of hand holding. There's a certain context to a place like this.

I've spoken a little bit about place and placelessness before on here. As we visited Kris and Dick's (the pastors I'm working with on the Wetlands Theological Education Project among other things) house after church yesterday and I explored their expansive library covering wetlands and ecology and spirituality and a whole lot of geography. Oh man, these are my people. Dick and I got to talking about how a lot of the trouble in southern LA is place-space related, meaning, this is currently a PLACE (which has particular, personal meaning and some sort of sentiment, whether good or bad-- the locals certainly have good sentiments about their home here) but is quickly transitioning to a SPACE (which lacks that meaning, either by being wiped out or changed to the point that you can't recognize it for its place, like building the same big box stores in every town, or the landscape being totally destroyed-- it loses its uniqueness).

Now that you've survived the geography lesson du jour (look! I spoke French!), let me tell you what it looks like:

Incredible.





 

(More of my Louisiana photos can be found here!) 

  

So the problem here isn't just that there are a lot of wetlands, absolutely critical ecosystems, eroding away very rapidly-- for example, this tree stump in the middle of the photo was ON LAND six months ago.

The problem is that the people who live here have strong ties to the place they live. For the most part, they are still subsistence fishers, meaning, they really just harvest enough to survive as a community. They really aren't selling this stuff. Without a healthy ecosystem to fish in, or solid ground to live on, what will happen to the community? And what few, small efforts have been made to move these people inland, only intend to move individuals to new communities, not the entire community together. What will they do? How will they survive without each other? Not very well.


These signs and pipelines were everywhere, for petroleum and for natural gas. Our hosts for the day also let us know that they are damaged and leaking all over the place. No one checks up on them. The wetlands are just being polluted.

It can be very overwhelming to think about.

Instead, I'm going to focus on the beautiful hospitality, the incredible community, and the good work being done to protect it all. Tomorrow is my first day of work. I'm just going to meet some of the researchers I'll be working with and come up with a contract, but it's the first step of many toward supporting some really awesome projects.

We were supposed to experience Cajun music and dancing at a place called the Jolly Inn, but the owner closed up shop to go fishing himself, so we've all agreed to make the trip another time!