Overview of the issue
Nearly 2,000 square miles of prime fish and wildlife habitat have vanished along Louisiana’s coast. The sea level is rising at the same time that the land is sinking and eroding, because sediment that was historically delivered by annual flooding on the Mississippi River has been cut off by flood-protection and navigation levees for a century.
Habitat conditions were made even worse in 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon suffered an explosion and sank, causing the largest oil spill ever to occur in U.S. waters. Reparation fees paid by BP, however, have created once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to restore Louisiana’s coastal wetlands and fish habitat and undo more than just oil spill damage. Watch our videos to learn how.
