April 26, 2024 • 54 mins
Hy and Christopher examine Louisiana’s deteriorating wetlands, and the major efforts that are being made to restore them.
In the last 20 years, 800 acres of land have returned near Mardi Gras pass 1100 acres at Canaveron. There are a literal forest of Cypress trees where there once was just water.
The state is about to embark on the multi billion dollar mid-Barataria diversion, to restore thousands of more acres, but the ideas controversial with oyster fishermen, who believed the freshwater and silt will destroy their oyster fields.
To explore the desperate need to rebuild our coastline for hurricane protection, Hy and Christopher are joined by Simone Maloz, Campaign Director for Restore the Mississippi River Delta.
In the last 20 years, 800 acres of land have returned near Mardi Gras pass 1100 acres at Canaveron. There are a literal forest of Cypress trees where there once was just water.
The state is about to embark on the multi billion dollar mid-Barataria diversion, to restore thousands of more acres, but the ideas controversial with oyster fishermen, who believed the freshwater and silt will destroy their oyster fields.
To explore the desperate need to rebuild our coastline for hurricane protection, Hy and Christopher are joined by Simone Maloz, Campaign Director for Restore the Mississippi River Delta.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Battles, the politicians, the pressed, the digitatas and magicians. Trust to
see the money, then you don't. There's nothing to fill the holes while
then feeling their pockets by holes,the politicians bouncing down the road. Everybody's
(00:23):
wition with no moth, corruption anddysfunction. It's gone a day, Divide
it a vention. Louisiana loses almosta football field of coastline every hour,
but since tremendous successes have actually happened. In the last twenty years, hundreds
and even thousands of acres have beenreclaimed. But it's created some controversy,
(00:48):
particularly with oyster fishermen. As weare about to embark on the biggest coastal
restoration project in Louisiana and American history. That more on this edition of The
Founder Show, and God bless allout there. You are now listening to
the founders, So the voice ofthe founding fathers, your founding fathers,
coming to you deep within the bowelsof those mystic and cryptic alligator swamps of
(01:10):
the Big Easy, that old CrescentCity, New Orleans, Louisiana, and
high up on top of that oldLiberty cypress tree draped in Spanish Moss way
out on the Eagles Branch is noneother then you've been Gary Bubbao the Republic
Chaplain Hi mcgnry with Christopher Tedmurey,roving reporter, resident Radical moderate and associate
(01:30):
editor of the Louisiana Weekly newspaper Louisianaweeekly dot Net. Joining us in the
Founder's Show is Simone Milaw's. She'sthe campaign director for Restore the Mississippi River
and Simone, I, Hi andI, you know, have both lamented
the loss of our coastline. ButI've got to give you some credit.
The reason why I was put intouch with you was because the Ponchatrain Conservancy
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kind of opened my eyes to howwe've actually had some successes recently. So
just so understand this, I geta call from a friend of mine,
Anima Thurne, and said, Christopher, do you want to go out in
an airboat? I said sure,I always loved to go on airboat.
And I said you want to goout? You want to go out and
see Marty graro pass. I said, yeah, sure, why and this
sounds nice, but what's the catch? And she said, I want to
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show you something? And so Iwent out with some of the Pondering Conservancy
to Marty gru Pass first out intonear the Breton Sound, and Hi,
I beheld eight hundred and eighty acresof land that was where water was twenty
years ago. Wait, it getsbetter, and this is Breton Sound.
This is right near Breton Sound.Wow. And so but I watched this.
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Not only is this land back asland, trees are naturally calling much
of it as forests now, andthere it wasn't planted. Wow. Then
the next week I went out inan airboat not far away from there,
near Canaveron where there's a smaller diversion, and went and saw eleven hundred acres
that have been recreated where they plantedCyprus, where literally they was open water
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a lake where there was nothing sosimoneilas. It's amazing that even though these
compared to all of our coastal lossmay sound small, these are thousands of
acres that came about by simply lettingthe Mississippi River put a little bit of
its uh fresh water in a littlebit of itself out into the marsh lands.
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It was done naturally, it wasdone by as Mother nature. I
mean, it's it was incredible.I've been campaigning for this for years.
I used to go to the Armycor engineers to try to talk them into
it. They knew all about it, of course, and they have done
one big project down there now.It's to the west of the mouth of
the river. You probably know aboutit, and it almost looks like a
perfect square where they were able todo well, we're going to talk about
it. We can talk about that, okay, So Simonmila's if you would,
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what is the state the state ofour wetlands at this point? Are
we making are we having some successrebuilding it? And we're going to talk
about the projects that are coming.So yeah, well, thank you Christopher.
First, thank you for having meon to you learn the first rule
about coastal Louisiana, which is neversaying know to a boat ride, So
good job on that, remember thatalways. And third, yeah, we
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it is really unbelievable what the MississippiRiver still has the power to do,
right, and we all know that. That's how we're here in coastal Louisiana
today is because of that power ofthe Mississippi River. But you know,
Christopher just really hasn't gone away,and there are places where she still wants
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to do what she wants to do, and we have had the fortunate experience
of being on the ground and greatgroups like Pontraitrin Conservancy have been monitoring it
and watching it happen. And that'san important story that we want to tell,
is how we and we reconnect tothe river. How many things,
how many opportunities can happen in anarea that frankly has been you know,
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really devastated over decades. Let's faceit, I mean, we've lost effectively
some say the state of Rhode Island. Others have told me the state of
Delaware, but literally thousands of squaremiles of coastline. And thank them it,
folks, we'd have had twice thatmuch land if this tragic event had
not happened down here in Louisiana.Some think primarily because of the levees,
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which they didn't know about at thetime, but also but also access canals
and a whole other points. Yeah, but all industry bringing in all What's
interesting Simon Milo's is that it doesn'ttake a whole lot to rebuild land.
And one of the things, letme so, I looked at the Marty
Gras Pass area, which is thislarge pass in about sixty eight thousand square
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feet of silt rushing through sixty peryou know, per day, per year,
per year. At what I'm atCanaveron, which is right at the
where the federal flood control areas are, it's only eight thousand and eight thousand.
Since nineteen ninety one has rebuilt onethousand acres, So it doesn't take
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a whole lot to do it.But I will tell you I went up
to back and rouge some of thoseand I started talking about this, and
immediately people you know, were suddenlywho used to be enthusiastic about it,
were suddenly very tight lipped. Becausethe biggest of these coastal diversions is coming
up in the Mid Barrataria diversion,and to say that there's some political opposition
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to it after years of support isnot an understatement. It was pretty intense.
Can you talk about the biggest diversionthat we're planning and its potential,
but let's also talk about why there'ssome opposition. Yeah, So, kind
of starting back on the first threadthat we started there, Louisiana has experienced
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a tremendous amount of loss. Itstarted the very moment that we cut off
the river from the wetlands, andthere's been so many, so many things
that have come along with that.We've learned a lot of really really important
lessons, and I would say thepast twenty years or so, obviously,
hurricanes Katrina and Rita were a realturning point and our state where we said
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we can no longer do business thesame way. That's when we created a
new state authority. But most importantly, we started out with this comprehensive plan
to look at our coast and tobe able to put solutions in place,
to be able to you know,stem some of that landlaws. But it
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really centers around the resources that wehave today. Of course, you know,
the most important of which is theMississippi River with the places that you
were able to go out. Well, let's start with Mardi Gras Pass.
That's a natural break, right,I mean, that is naturally happening on
the east bank of the river.But something like Conarvin was planned, planned
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decades ago, literally decades ago,and put into place, and it was
only for fresh water. And sowe're able to see those two very different
things happen in real time. Whatwe do know, Christopher, from both
of those examples is that when youreconnect to the river, you can rebuild
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wetlands, and that's the entire basisof the Mid Barritaria Sediment Diversion. Of
course, that's happening on the westside of the river into the really devastated
Barritaria basin. Not only do they, you know, have extreme amounts of
land loss in that basin, theyalso in less than three years ago,
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got devastated by Hurricane Ida too,right, so some of that loss is
really fresh and is right there infront of our faces. So the concept
of reconnecting to the river with aproject like Mid Barrataria Sediment Diversion, it
really started decades ago. It previouslybegan with an idea on They shorthanded it
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and called it. They called itMyrtle Grove, right, a reintroduction at
Myrtle Grove. And that's just thelocation on the river about which it happens.
But it's really just an idea thathas been around for a very long
time and it has been studied evenmore intensely in the past I would say
decade or more so when the DeepWater Horizon oil spill happened. We're very
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soon approaching the fourteenth anniversary of thatwhen that happened, and it did come
with these fines and fees to mitigatethe loss that happened. Right, So,
the money that came as a resultof the oil spill were directly tied
to projects that needed to be implementedon the Louisiana's coast. So for the
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first time there was possibly funding availableto build a project like Myrtle Grove.
And so that's really when that projectkicked into high gear. Christopher. It
took six years, six years toget the permit, to get a permit
or permissions from the US Army Corpsof Engineers to even build that. Wow,
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not not in that means of politicians, not the army. People don't
know that the politicians control the ArmyCorps and they can only do what the
politicians let them do. That's afact. So the US Army Corps of
Engineers was obviously very integral into thatprocess because you were affecting, you know,
these so critical Mississippi River levees,et cetera. You were impacting other
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federal projects. So it went throughan extensive, extensive review as part of
that permitting process. But even evenfor that oil spill money to be used
on those projects. It went throughanother review process. This process, I
thought, if you would Simone Melais joining Hi McHenry and Christopher Tidmore here
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on the Founder's Show. She's talkingabout coastal restoration, particularly the Mid Barritaria
diversion, which is what she's themiddle level. And so we got six
years of this, six years ofthis, and we're pretty much on the
verge of actually going into the MidBarrataria diversion. And now the opposition in
Baton Rouge is coming from some ofthe oyster fishermen. Right. I've been
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trying to figure that. I've beentrying to figure this one out because we
mentioned Canaveran that was to put freshwater into the basin to keep oysters alive.
So it's not like every diversion haswiped out our oysters. Some of
them helped it. But to say, I will tell you at the legislature,
if you talk about Mid Barrataria,people look at you and they start
screaming, you're going to kill Louisiana'saquaculture. And I said, well,
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if you don't have a coastline,that's kind of pointless. But it is
It is a controversial issue wisely soContra River the way they've done it,
and again because of the Levees' onehundred fifty years ago, and they didn't
realize the devastating impact that has hurtthe ecosystem more than anything, we're trying
to restore that ecosystem. And youknow, if the oyster fishermen have a
couple of slow years because of that, when it all comes together, they're
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going to have you know, bumpor crops. So they ought to be
thinking about that and maybe is thereany way we could move the oyster fisherman
to well other freshwater areas for oystersand and help them you know, see
that and help that get going whilewe're building back bigger oyster fields for them
along the coast. That's what it'sdoing for him. What is it go
ahead? Yes, So as partof that extensive review process, they did
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consider impacts not just to oysters,but but to many other fisheries shrimp,
uh, to marine mammals, tobirds, right, I mean, to
all kinds. There's there's so manydifferent species and habitats right that have been
affected by land loss and that arepotentially could be impacted both both positively and
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negatively because of something like the Midbritariasediment diversion. But that was extensively reviewed,
So hundreds of people worked on thesepermits and these plants. They received
thousands of comments, there were hundredsof public meetings all along the way,
and so there was a real andthat's not fun to talk about about how
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many pea of documents were produced orhow many public meetings they had, but
it's really critical for folks to knowthat this just didn't happen overnight. This
just didn't happen on a whim.Because of those impacts. They did associate
some dollars to mitigate for that,right, and so there are almost four
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hundred million dollars in mitigation projects builtinto this plan. And that doesn't even
include something that term that we use, which is called stewardship. Simon,
can you give the area that thiswill accomplish Mid Barritaria. Yeah, no,
no, no, no, no, no no no no, from
from the mouth of the river goingeast and the mouth of the river going
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west. What is the full extentof this of this effort. Yeah,
so the impact area of obviously isnearly the entirety of the mid Barritaria Basin
or excuse me, the Barritaria Basin. And one thing to consider is,
you know you were talking talking aboutoysters, and obviously in coastal Louisiana there's
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such a need for this delicate ballance. You know, too much salt water,
too much fresh water, and soit's really important that we keep that
balance in those basins, and projectsjust like this could could help stabilize define
the geographical boundaries of the barret Iknow where barritarias, but what you give
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them define the boundaries. So theBaritari Basin itself is from Bayola Foush all
the way over to the Mississippi River. So that little pie wedge that includes
Grand Dial La Fee all on up, including some of the west, that
big square thing. I was talkingabout that group and I went out the
core was you know, I wantto know how did they do that?
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And of course they told me Iknew, I figured how they did it.
Anyway, is that over about VermilionBay. So there's several different Oh
gosh, there's there's so many activeconstruction projects right now. And the Arrietaria
Basin alone, they just complete sevenmiles of a ridge. They call that
Spanish Pass they rebuild and at thetime was one of the biggest projects just
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in the past couple of years.They call that Upper Barritaria marsh creation.
They have several other projects like byyou DuPont. All of that was all
marsh creation. So we hear thata lot about when you can dredge sediment
and almost always in this case forPlacamin's Parish, it comes from the river.
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Right. They dredge the sediment inthe river and they pump it into
a confined area and they call thatmarsh creation, right. And so that
is one tool that we have inthe tool chest in a diversion, whether
it be sediment or fresh water.It's just another thing that you can do.
But because we're using that power ofthe Mississippi River, it does make
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it more sustainable. Right. It'slike this ever evolving, always running kind
of Omelas who's campaign director of theRestore the Mississippi Delta campaign. One of
the things that you know, Hiand I've often looked at is basically and
put the tools in place. Inother words, make the openings. Do
that and mother nature will fix herselfyou. But you've got to be able
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to give her the tools to doso. In this case, we're talking
about fresh water and silt, andshe will rebuild the coastline. It's not
you don't have to stop shipping onthe Mississippi River. A few places you
may have to dredge. You mayhave to dredge a little bit more than
you do that. That's because theriver levels going down a little bit.
But for the most part, we'retalking about something it doesn't affect our commerce.
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The question is, though we getfour hundred million dollars. I keep
talking to these oyster fishermen and theseother aquaculture shrimp, so and so forth,
and I asked them because these areleases, and I said, well,
how are you moving? And itdoesn't seem like there's any thought that
this is going to happen. It'skind of strange. It's you know,
this could kill us. I said, well, what about mitigation to new
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fields and effects long term? Yourquestion, how can this improve? And
it's very much well, this willwipe us out for three or four years
and we'll be dead thereafter. Sowhat's the point of it? And there
seems to be a breakdown in communication. You see where I'm coming from with
this yeah, yeah, yes,yes, And so you asked about that
earlier and I'm happy to address that. So obviously, you know, as
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part of the evaluation process, theydid talk about impacts to oysters, and
you know, having several of ourgroups have worked in coastal Louisiana for decades,
and you know, we understand theevolution of oysters, We understand the
importance of the industry. And reallyit goes back to this whole conversation about
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balancing all of these needs. Ijust talked about balancing freshwater and saltwater.
It's about balancing navigation with ecosystem needs. It's about balancing this species and that
species. But Christopher, I thinkthe one thing that we really really need
to discuss is what a future withoutaction looks like in coastal Louisiana. And
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we have been making monster investments incoastal Louisiana. We for the past several
years, have been putting a billiondollars into our coast from one end to
the other, and all in aneffort to build, you know, the
New Orleans Levey System or rebuild Barrierislands. And we know that we cannot
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take our foot off the gas pedalwe have to keep implementing these projects or
we're never ever going to be ableto think about you know, what a
future coastal Louisiana looks like. Thatisn't different. This is somebody said once
there is no status quo in Louisiana, right, and that certainly means coastal
Louisiana. So we do not talkenough about not building projects, not not
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just mid Barritaria, but what afuture looks like if we do nothing.
Of course, we don't want todo nothing. We have this wonderful science
based master plan that has so muchreview that's built into it. We have
projects that have public input, thathave been vetted, that have to receive
federal permits and permissions to build it. And so you just mentioned about tools
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in the tool chest and not takingany of those out. And so for
the money, right, because youcan talk about the ecosystem all that thought
high is a question. Excuse metwo things. First of all, I
want to define or describe in Layman'sterms. Let's say what you're what we're
talking about here, and that is, folks, what this means is you
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punch a hole in the Mississippi Riverlevees on the gulf side, not on
the other unless you're down by St. Bnard and all that. Then you
could shoot water off and build upthat part of the UH coastal area,
which and they needed. That's themost deteriorated of all the areas. But
you punching holes in the levee andthen you run canals or big giant pipes
or whatever till you hit the gulf, and then all of that alluvial soil,
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all of that silt rich silt thatis now heading all the way out
and being dumped out into the Gulfof Mexico way off coast doesn't do anybody
any good. Is now going togo back to what it used to do.
It's going to be building our coastand improving our estuaries, making things
a whole lot better than they everwere. We need to. We're losing
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it's like close to I don't know, it's a thousand acres every day or
something. It's terrible with the landof loss of land that we're going through
right now. That's not helping anybodyout. People literally losing their farms,
their communities, little towns are disappearing. We need to stop that. We
need to reclaim the land, andthat's what this is about. Did that
make that? I say that clearlyfor a layman to understand. Simoon.
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Yeah, so we're hearing that they'reabout to come up with some land loss,
some updated land lost, DTA.You know what we've been saying,
as we lose a football field ofland every one hundred minutes. And you're
right now reconnecting to the river andpunching those holes. But what we're doing
is we are building for control,right, So when we build this structure,
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it has a massive amount of controlto it. It is. It's
not when when Christopher went out toNeptune Pass he saw it, there's no
structure. This is just happening naturally, and this is not the case for
this project. There will be gatesthat could be opened when the river is
high, they will be closed whenthe river is low, when there's a
storm approaching, et cetera. Sowhat you're paying for is control of that
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reconnection to the river. Let meshare another thing about the fisherman. I
was a commercial fisherman years ago.Shrimp. I was a shrimper, and
I can tell you one thing aboutshrimp. They don't die, They're more
sturdy you'll never get It's like you'llnever get rid of roach's never got rid
a mesquites, never get rid ofpay. You're never gonna get rid of
shrimp. You could wipe out theentire shrimp population and a year later and
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that they're not fish. Give ita one year break and at the end
of the year you would have bumpercrops. That's how productive and reproductive.
Reproductive, yeah, reproductive shrimp areand so anyway, But but I think
this is what's going on. Ithink these fishermen, especially the oyster skin,
they seem to be the greatest onesat risk. They're putting up such
a fight because you know what they'regoing for. They want the maximum reimbursements
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they can get from the federal goal. Well, and I think that has
a lot to do with all theirscreaming house and some of some of them,
some of them see the leases theyown actually become useless. So some
of this is territory. There's alot more. It's more than there's of
projects this size and scale. Right, you know, one of the reasons
why you know this is a megaproject, right in terms of you know,
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investing billion dollars or more. Right, it just really matches the size
of the problem, right that thatis how big of a problem that we're
facing in coastal Louisiana, is thatwe need projects of this size and scale
to to you know, stabilize coastalLouisiana, to protect these communities that need
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these wetlands before them. Right.But so it's really it is really complicated,
right And there are there are impacts. There are both positive and negative
impacts, and we are certainly notnot death to that conversation into hearing about
those impacts. What we want todo is we want to be able to
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talk through those We want to beable to have an understanding about what has
happened in the basin already, whatcould happen if this project is not built,
and then of course we want totalk about what happens if this project
is built. There are there areimpacts that have been identified here is there
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is money associated with that. That'snot money that we have to go back
to DC or go back to batonRy not. Actually, if you can,
if you can help with if youcan hold that thought for a second,
because we got to take a greatcommercial break. Simone Malas of the
campaign to restore the Mississippi River Deltais joining us here on The Founder Show
with Hi mccknery and Christopher tid More. We'renna take quick commercial break. When
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we come back, we're going totalk about what happens if we don't rebuild
our coast and the nightmare scenario,what happens if we rebuild it? Will
it be enough? With rising waterlevels? Rescue, recovery, re engagement.
These are not just words. Theseare the action steps we at the
(24:38):
New Orleans Mission take to make apositive impact on the homeless problem facing the
greater New Orleans area. New OrleansMission is a stepping stone out of that
life of destruction and into a lifeof hope and purpose. Partner with us
today go to www dot New OrleansMission dot org or make a difference by
(25:02):
texting to seven seven nine four eightAnd welcome back to the Founder Show.
And it's tapahih McHenry and I wantto know we're working very hard as always
to bring you the truth, thewhole truth, and another but the truth,
So help us God. And we'vegot a very exciting guest, Simone,
who is working very hard on howto restore our coastal areas, which
(25:27):
is a very important issue in thisstate. And this is Christopher Ted Morrisonmalis,
who is campaign director of to Restorethe Mississippi River Delta, is joining
us talking about some of the coastalrestoration projects that have been going, particularly
the Mid Barritaria project, which isafter years of planning, an endless study,
millions upon millions of dollars spent,is about to be kicked off.
(25:49):
It's a matter of some controversy inBaton Rouge. And but before we went
to the break Simon, we weretalking about, you know, the different
scenarios of what could happen. I'mvery fond, as many of the audience
knows. I spent years as amember of the Louisiana State Museum Board,
and we have the Hurricane exhibit atthe presbyter which we're updating actually for the
twentieth an version of Katrina, andthere's this wonderful diorama where it's actually a
(26:12):
game and you play it, andit's kind of a tragic game when you
think about it, but it showsyou, for the if you the more
trees and wetlands you have, themore you're protected against hurricanes, and so
you're the part of the game isyou're building up wetlands to protect you against
this. But the point of thesubject is, the reason why hurricanes seem
(26:33):
to feel like they're getting worse isnot just that the storms are bigger.
It's the fact that they're a lotcloser to the water that we used to
be hundreds of miles of wetlands protectingNew Orleans, Lafayette, Lake Charles,
even Homer and Thibodeaux had quite alot of protection wetlands that don't frankly exist
anymore. So how do wetlands protectus from major wind events and storms?
(26:56):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, something that we could talk about all
day. I love that they're findinga way to educate people, even even
with a fun game, to beable to talk about it, right,
But you know, the fact isis that we need to protect our hurricane
protection, right. You need somethingin front of those levees, and our
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friends and our coalition partners at PontaTrain Conservancy have really coined this idea of
multiple lines of defense and that appliesso uniquely to coastal Louisiana. But it
really starts out at the Barrier Islands, interior marsh. You know, you
want to have levees. Of course, you want to elevate homes that may
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be in risk. Get involves evacuationroutes, you know, So that idea
of multiple lines of defense is reallycritical in coastal Louisiana. And when we
talk about coastal restoration, we're talkingabout putting something in between you and that
hurricane levee protection. And so youknow, Louisian has lost over two thousand
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square miles since nineteen thirty two.We talked about that earlier, whether it's
Rhode Island or Delaware. You know, that is an unbelievable amount of protection,
right, that came before you,before the East coastal community. And
think of this, folks, insteadof losing it, we'd continued to gain
it, we'd have an extra twothousand miles. So we basically lost four
(28:22):
thousand miles, right. And thefuture is also has you know, because
of these changing conditions, because ofyou know, these more powerful hurricanes and
you know, increased water levels.We are looking at you know, Louisiana
land loss that could double that aswe get to twenty fifty, right,
so you're looking at maybe losing anadditional four thousand square miles. But the
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fact that you know we have thiswonderful master plan, we do have so
many that can be dedicated to this, and really importantly, we have folks
that care very deeply, not justin coastal Wi Cauisiana, throughout Louisiana,
and we have a lot of nationalattention here that could bring us some of
the dollars that we need to beable to keep up the work that we
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have to do. It also meanstens of thousands of jobs this year alone,
where the annual spending is about onepoint seven billion dollars, and it's
estimated that that could create around eleventhousand jobs here in coastal Louisiana. And
so it's about the economy and evenmuch so more about the environment. And
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you asked why did the FEDS putup this money, Well, because thirty
percent of our oil refineries and sixtypercent of our petrochemical refinement comes are basically
exposed. We knew after Hurricane Katrina, when the oil price spiked that if
you take out South Louisiana, youtake out most of the nation's ability to
(29:55):
refine oil and to pump it through. And so it's we've paid a price
by building pipelines, building canals,these wetlands help grows, but it also
got some national attention when these stormscame through of what is at risk.
And Simone Mallows is joining us.She's the campaign director of the Campaign to
Restore the Mississippi River Delta, andshe's talking about some of the coastal restoration
(30:15):
projects. And you said, yousaid it pretty bluntly, if we do
nothing, we lose another four thousandsquare miles. Let me translate that.
That's kind of like saying, well, let's see, uh, the west
Wego's beachfront property and uh if ifit's not the Mississippi River itself, so
the Garden District becomes the Mississippi coastline. You are if you want to
(30:38):
live in home and Thibodeau developed guillsand uh and pretty much anything south still
yeah, anything south, no,there's no way, and you'd be you'd
be like an oil refinery. Andand anything anything south of I ten of
Lafayett or Lake Charles is essentially underwater. If we don't read build it goost
on one of the things the thingsthat is not really I don't think they're
(30:59):
thinking of this. If that doeshappen. What happened to the oyster industry.
Their releases are way out in theGulf now that are useless to them.
So it's this is a benefit forthem. Yeah, they're going to
take some upfront uh problems and losses, but the federal government's going to reimburse
them. And I see that.I see the worries that come out of
this. But here's what here's whatI'm worried about to simone, and and
(31:23):
look, I'm not going to getwe get one hundred thousand people that will
give us emails whenever we talk aboutglobal warming and on this or that,
I'm simply going to say that,you know what man made natural avers.
We do know through scientific place thatthe warming period of the Earth is causing
(31:45):
sea levels to rise somewhat. Thatis that is that is happening right now.
So one of the questions I've beenposed is if we're spending all this
money to rebuild coastlines but sea levelsrise three or four feet, does it
matter will they be under or anywayby twenty one hundred. Well, those
are all things that are certainly talkedabout and considered when we think about what
(32:07):
happens in a future Louisiana. Right, So you know, one thing that
we have which is unique to Louisianaagain that makes us a little different,
is that our land sinks, notnot other you know, other places they
may sink a little, but becausewe are this beautiful delta, because we
are fairly new to six thousand yearsago the coastline was manned devel you know.
(32:29):
Yeah, because yeah, because ofthe material that makes itself neat.
Yeah, we we sink faster thanother people. And so so that makes
a big difference. So that thatsubsidence and how we sink on top of
these rising waters. And then whenwe talk about those land lass rates I
mentioned earlier about how you know,the average or the way to say that
(32:52):
people have been saying is that welose a football field of land every one
hundred minutes. Well, then youget a hurricane like Ida, and within
a matter of days you have lostone hundred square miles. One hundred square
miles for an event like that too, Right, And there's so much at
steak. We have, you know, five of the top twenty ports by
(33:14):
tonnage. We have, you know, such a huge commercial fishing industry,
We have a massive recreational fishing industry. Right, we have all these things
that are dependent upon Louisiana's natural resourcesin terms of our economy. So there
is so much at stake. Andlook, we haven't even scratched the surface
of culture, right, and whatmakes Louisiana unique and different. And I
(33:37):
grew up in Homa, and youcan't just transplant that somewhere else, right,
And so there are some of thosediscussions about what is really important and
valuable here in coastal Louisiana, youknow, in terms of the economy and
the people and the culture. Butwe really have to talk about the risks
(33:58):
that we face, the economic risk, the environmental risk. And that's one
thing. And I think that youknow, when we talk about we can't
ever have the coast that we usedto have. I think that we part
of our jobs, certainly in thenonprofit world, and part of being part
of these communities in coastal Louisiana istalking about risk and talking about what it
(34:23):
means to live in this community.You know, what it means how a
community can recover after a storm.We've been having these series of meetings talking
about the Coastal master Plan. Wehad a meeting in Belchase, and one
of the things that was talked aboutquite a bit was just called high tide
(34:45):
flooding or nuisance flooding. There arecoastal communities that are flooding now, not
even around a storm, not evenaround a tropical event. And so we
are hearing that from coastal communities andwe are we need, we need to
and the state has been has beentalking about it somewhat, about the risk
(35:06):
that is involved in coastal Louisiana.Yes, we're making these investments, but
we also need to talk about what'sat risk, both environmentally and you know,
with economics, what's what's happened.We're talking, we're talking. Let's
let's let's be very blunt. We'retalking about a million people being chased from
their homes, right. I mean, it's it's it's, it's it makes,
it makes even the evacuations from HurricaneKatrina sea mild in comparison. Simone
(35:31):
Mallis is joining us. She's thecampaign director for the campaign to Restore the
Mississippi River Delta. With him mcchenryChristopher Timbore here in the Founder Show,
and we were talking about coastal restoration. It's important, and particularly the mid
barritaria diversion, which has been thecontroversy in Baton Rouge. And uh and
how you had a quick question becauseI got another one. Yeah, one
of my theories on this, becauseit's been done in Florida. Uh.
(35:53):
Mangrove swamps are common in the SouthPacific or on the islands and whatnot.
They're magnificent. Uh. They nothingcan take them out Florida plant them.
And I've been through them and inthem, and I love mangrove swamps.
And why don't we plant mangroves alongthe coast. That is one of the
greatest buffers you could ever put there. And guess what they grow, which
(36:15):
means they help actually build the coast. They hold the silt. They're one
of the best silt holders you couldever get, and they create even a
wonderful estuary system. I mean,I think that would be one of the
best things we could ever do onour coast. Get some mangroves and plant.
I was talking about mangroves earlier today. So it's funny that that is
on our minds. You know,in coastal and deep coastal communities and I've
(36:39):
spent so much time around Port Fouchon. They have mangroves down there. They
are very brillion there, they're veryhardy. Well, so there is there.
That is just one example, andthis is kind of a term that
we use, and it's called naturebeast solutions, right, and I mean
mangroves naturally in some of these coastalcommunities. Another thing is oyster reefs,
(37:04):
right. Oyster reefs natural and nownow artificial oyster reefs are helping to ye
are helping to protect coastal communities,right. And so so this idea that
we can use nature and we shouldright use something that's very specific to the
community that either used to exist orstill exists. So that is really a
(37:25):
common theme and you'll see that alot in a lot of the planning that's
happening in coastal Louisiana. And honestly, we're leading the way for really nation
thinking about how we can kind ofput those nature based solutions into action where
we're not leading the nation and whereFlorida is eating our lunch, and it
would help a lot. Simone mellasis of the campaign to Restore the Mississippi
(37:49):
River Delta, is these areas,These wetlands are inexplicably beautiful. They're unbelievable,
and yet you don't we hear aboutSWA tours or something. But for
the most part, you don't havea culture like they have in the Everglades
where people want to go and towardthe Everglades, they want to see this.
We've done a really bad job ofmarketing what could be a huge economic
(38:12):
development tool as well as an educationaltool to show how important the wetlands is
and how important investment and saving themare. And we've done a really bad
job of it as a state.As in tourism officials, it's frankly is
journalists like me, you know.So yeah, And that's one thing that
we think about, right, wethink about a lot. How can we
increase access and increase visibility these areas. You went out, You know how
(38:36):
hard it is. It's not easyto get to some of these places,
and so we think about all thesedifferent ways that we can bring that to
people. I will say that ecotourism is certainly a growing side industry here
in coastal Louisiana. The birders,it is unbelievable. If you talk to
the birding community, how impressed andhow dialed in they are in coastal Louisiana.
(39:01):
And the great things about that isthat that just brings different audiences to
coastal Louisiana. They care about thebirds that migrate here through coastal Louisiana.
On the other side, you alsohave lots of different conservation groups ducks unlimited,
right, they care about birds injust a little different way, you
know, some of the fishing organizationsand those kinds of things. So we
(39:22):
do think about different audiences. Butyeah, I think a lot of people
think that, oh, that's Louisiana'sproblem, right. Another unique thing about
coastal Louisiana is that this is ourproblem. And so when we talk about
the commercial fisheries, when we talkabout the connectivity to the ports, when
we talk about the industries that arebased here, that is when the entire
(39:45):
nation feels where Louisiana is really importantto them. And so part of this
is a continuous education. Always.We can never think that anybody knows enough
about coastal from how we got hereto where we was, and that's thirty
percent of the nation's aquaculture that comesfrom here. They all's I here's great.
(40:07):
You know, I've spent a lotof time in the swamps in the
marshes of South Louisiana, a lotof time, especially in my earlier years,
and one of my favorite places ofall was the mouth of the river.
It is literally a water wonderland.It's solid rosos. I mean they
have a few trees, but it'smainly roses. Rosos is a grass of
marsh grass that grows like ten twentyfeet tall. It's astounding. And all
(40:30):
those bayous and waterways and ponds andwhatever that are back there surrounded by rosos.
You make the best duck blind youcould ever want to get. And
you see the most amazing wildlife.Alligators, bald eagles. One time I
counted about thirty bald eagles in justabout a couple of miles, all the
kind of fish you can think of, magnificent fishing of course, ducks and
(40:52):
geese, and even you're not goingto believe, it's hard to believe this,
but literally herds herds of swimming pigslive on those islands down there,
and they swear, Yeah, whata tourist, I mean, what a
thing to show tourists to come givethem a tour. It was I think
it's so beautiful, but it's gettingmen there. It takes an hour and
(41:14):
a half to drive to to agress point. So but to momus in
our last couple of minutes, Ido want to bring up one other political
issue. We've talked about the controversiesin Baton Rouge over the oyster fishermen and
the aquaculture with the mid Barritaria diversion. But there's another bigger issue and I
want to I'm a journalist, soI've got to throw this in your face.
You can duck it or take it. There is a discussion about welding
the Coastal Restoration Authority into the Departmentof Natural Resources and Energy, and of
(41:39):
course this was created by Garrett Gravesas a political subtext about this to focus
on the coast. And it's gota lot of people in your business of
rebuilding our coast very wary and franklya little nervous and scared at this initiative
by the Landry administration. What areyour thoughts on it? Yeah, you
know, I have a long backgroundand Louisiana. You know, I was
(42:01):
around from the very beginning of thecreation of CPR A I was. I
was of course around for Katrina andRita working in coastal Louisiana and you know,
doing this kind of restoration work.And it really even started with Governor
Foster and then you know before GovernorBlanco. This this has transcended gubernatorial administrations.
(42:22):
This has transcended you know, differentpresidential administrations. This is something you
know, coastal Louisiana. When afterKatrina and Rita and we said this,
this can't happen again. And insuch an effort was made, there were
congressional reports that said Louisiana can't dothis the same way anymore. And and
(42:45):
we really put together a program thatis not just something that the people of
Louisiana should be exceptionally proud of,but it's something that we are are looked
at nationwide Internationally. People admire whatwe've done here in coastal Louisiana and they
they talk about that, they talkabout bringing that to their communities Tampa.
(43:07):
Tampa is starting a master plan thatis thinking about how Louisiana had our coastal
master plans. So there is somethingto be said about how successful the coastal
program here is in coastal Louisiana andare my I represent a coalition that has
(43:28):
concerns about, you know, whatchanges to the program, what implications do
those bring? Yeah, of course, you know, we we're almost out
of time. I do, andI think there's a lot of opposition on
some fronts, but it's it's oneof the issues someone of somebody wants to
find out more about your organization asa campaign director of the Mississippi River Delta
(43:50):
Restore the Missipi River Delta, howwould they do it? Yeah, we
have a really great website, MississippiRiverdelta dot org, and we're a coalition
of organization and proudly punch a TrainedConservancy is part of that. Their website
is Science for our Coast. Theyhave a very cool app that you can
look at that that dials you directlyinto some of the science that they're doing.
(44:14):
They do a lot of water qualitywork and and so we're proud to
have them a part of our coalition. We talk about some of those really
big projects, including mid Barritaria sedimentdiversion. There's a lot of information and
including some myth busting, including somewhat are the differences between this and that?
Is this true? Is that nottrue. We try to tackle a
(44:35):
lot of that on our website.We'll check it again. Simon Mallows,
thank you so much for joining,and folks will that was great with the
patriotic moment right after these important mesters. Keep up the great work, Darlin,
keep it up. Thank you,yes, ma'am. Thank you back
after this bye. Give the giftof flowers by calling Villary's Florist to one
(45:00):
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(45:22):
carry out roses, specials available.Folks. Call them one more time one
eight hundred VI l ERI and tellthem you heard it here in the Founder
Show. Folks, lets chaplin,Hi, McHenry, and I'm here to
tell you about our ministry, LAMBMinistries. We're in inner city ministry with
inner city focus and formula for innercity folks. Please check us out.
Go to our website Lambanola dot comthat's l A M B n O l
(45:45):
A dot com and find out allabout us. We're a very exciting ministry.
We've been operational for twenty eight yearsnow. We've seen about five thousand
kids come to Christ. We've seenhundreds more going to live very productive and
successful lives that they normally would nothave had. So if you're interested,
(46:05):
we need all the help we canget. We need prayer warriors, we
need financial supporters, and we needvolunteers. Just go to our website or
call me Chaplain High mac Henry ataera code five zero four seven two three
nine three six nine, and thankyou so very very much. Bide oos
(46:29):
ships. Well, folks are back, and this is Chaplinhi Machinry, and
you are listening to the Founders,show the voice to the founding fathers.
And it is no time for usto go into our chaplain. Bye bye,
patriotic moment. We just take abrief moment to remind you of the
biblical foundations of our country, ourJudeo Christian jurisprudence, and today we want
to talk about none other than SaintBrendan of Confort, a famous Irish missionary
(46:53):
who has actually belonged to Saint Patrick'sband. And what I mean by that,
Saint Patrick had one of the greatestrevival and missionary movements in the history
of Christendom. And it all startedwith him. He stomped up and down
Ireland and before you knew it,almost the entire island had converted to Christianity.
And then his followers from then on, for the next four hundred years,
(47:15):
filled Europe. They went into Asiaand Africa at bringing the Gospel,
saving civilization, if you will.And there were over one hundred universities founded
by these these great men and women, these saints of Saint Peter correction,
Saint Patrick. But there was oneof them. Did he get lost,
(47:35):
No, he just decided to gowest instead of east. And that was
Saint Brendan of Clonfort, who actuallyarrived in America in the mid sixth century,
and he went down the east coastall the way down to Florida,
and then he sailed back to Ireland. He was gone for a few years,
he and his band of monks andmissionaries, and when he arrived back
(48:00):
in America, he said something verypowerful. When you arride back in Ireland,
he said something very powerful, veryamazing. He said that he had
found the land that was going tobe the light upon the hill that would
illuminate the whole rest of the worldand bring deliverance to the entire world.
Folks, in a big sense,that actually happened. Time does not allow
(48:22):
me to develop that because we're runninga time for the show, but you
can check it out. It's absolutelyone of the most amazing stories in Christendom.
And there you have again another biblicalfoundation for America that predates everybody.
This is way before the colonial period. Of course, as far as we
know, these Irish monks were thefirst Europeans to ever arrive in America before
(48:45):
the Vikings, before Columbus, ofcourse, before them all, before the
Basque. There were other other peoplegroups that had been to America from Europe,
but they appeared to be the veryfirst ones. Perhaps that's why Columbus
made sure he had a couple ofhours seamen on his ship who knew the
waters and knew the stories of SaintBrendan and on the chapel in the chapel
(49:05):
wall at Annapolis, the Naval Academy, Service Academy. On the wall,
you will see a beautiful stained glasswindow of Saint Brendan of Comfort called the
Navigator, the Navigator, And sowe can see how God has had his
hand on this country, and somany Americans have understood that, recognized it,
and followed suit. But as Godhand on you, you need his
(49:29):
hand on you. You could bethe greatest patriotic American ever of all times,
biblical patriot. And yet you knowyou could still die and go to
hell if you didn't know this,and you need to know it. So
it is now time for us togo into our chapelain by by a gospel
moment. And again that's where Ijust take a short time to show you
how you can know that. Youknow that, you know you're God's child,
and you are going to heaven whenyou die, and you are safe
(49:51):
from a terrible burning hell. Andit goes like this, folks. The
Scripture says in John three sixteen,for God's soul love the world, that's
you, that's everybody. See,God is a great God of love and
mercy, and he would rather showthat. The Bible says he prefers mercy
to judgment. For God's so lovedthe world that he gave his only begotten
son. You see, because Godis a lover, he's a giver,
(50:12):
and he gave us his son,God, the Son, perfect God and
perfect Man, all the way Godand all the way Man. He gave
his only begotten son, the Lord, Jesus Christ. That whosoever, that's
you, that's me, that's everybody, everybody gets this chance. That whosoever
believeth in him, believe what inhim. He knew we had a big
(50:34):
love problem. It was broken upinto two things, sin and death.
And He took care of that loveproblem on the cross and out of the
grave. He took care of thelove problem, the sin problem when he
died for our sins. In thescripture says, his blood washed away all
of our sins. And then thatwas half the problem solved. The next
one was our death problem. Herose from the dead to win for each
(50:58):
and every one of us his preciousfree gifts of resurrection, everlasting life.
They dosoever believe it in him,believe this gospel message. That scripture says,
the gospel is the power of Godunto salvation, and the scripture says
the gospel. I declare to youthe gospel that Christ died for all of
our sins, courting scripture, wasburied and rose from the dead. According
to the scripture, that believe itin him shall not perish and not go
(51:21):
to hell, but have everlasting life. And folks, now you can know
that, you know that, youknow when you die, when you pass
away, you go on to theother side. You're going to the right
place where the Bible says Jesus hasa mansion waiting for you. Do it
now, folks, if you've neverdone it before. Don't wait till it's
too late, like the old countrypreacher said, and like the scripture says,
now today is a day of salvation. Well, folks, one more
(51:44):
thing left in the show. Andthat's where we go into either a testimony
time or a watchman on the wall, where we give you the warnings of
holy writ as to Jesus's second comingand how the end of this age will
come. Jesus said, there aremany signs this court of the Bible.
There there are two hundred signs inthe Bible for Jesus's second coming, one
(52:07):
hundred signs for his first coming.So maybe it's a second coming more important.
It's certainly very important, and thereare many of them. Time does
not allow, of course, togo through them all, but I usually
pick one or two and do themin this show. And today I want
to talk about the state of Israel. Did you know that Israel had to
be come back before Jesus could comeback? One hundred years ago? Everybody
(52:30):
said that was impossible. I don'tthink it's impossible anymore. They're one of
the most dynamic and powerful, creativenations in the world, bringing so many
good things. They're the fruit basketof Europe. They're one of the top
innovators of it technology. It justgoes on and on and on the things,
the great things that Israel has done. And yet you know, the
Bible says in the end, allthe nations of the world were turned against
Israel, seeking another Nazi holocaust toliterally kill every Jew in the world.
(52:54):
Folks, we're seeing the beginnings ofthat right now. You can't miss it
on the college campuses, you can'tmiss it in the un you can't miss
it in so many of the nationsof the world that are now are viciously
turning against Israel. That prophecy isbeing fulfilled right now before our eyes.
Folks, Jesus is coming back soon. Get ready for him. And the
(53:15):
best way in the world to getready is to go to him now,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusthim as your savior. Believe that he
did die for all your sins,was buried in rose of the dead.
Well, Folcus's not time for usto close with a mon Saint Martin singing
a creole goodbye, and God blessall out there we call you cl goodbye.
(53:38):
They think we're just wasted out thetime, all three sibl of me.
There's time for a creo goodbye.
Battles, the politicians, the pressed, the digitatas and magicians. Trust to
see the money, then you don't. There's nothing to fill the holes while
then feeling their pockets by holes,the politicians bouncing down the road. Everybody's
(00:23):
wition with no moth, corruption anddysfunction. It's gone a day, Divide
it a vention. Louisiana loses almosta football field of coastline every hour,
but since tremendous successes have actually happened. In the last twenty years, hundreds
and even thousands of acres have beenreclaimed. But it's created some controversy,
(00:48):
particularly with oyster fishermen. As weare about to embark on the biggest coastal
restoration project in Louisiana and American history. That more on this edition of The
Founder Show, and God bless allout there. You are now listening to
the founders, So the voice ofthe founding fathers, your founding fathers,
coming to you deep within the bowelsof those mystic and cryptic alligator swamps of
(01:10):
the Big Easy, that old CrescentCity, New Orleans, Louisiana, and
high up on top of that oldLiberty cypress tree draped in Spanish Moss way
out on the Eagles Branch is noneother then you've been Gary Bubbao the Republic
Chaplain Hi mcgnry with Christopher Tedmurey,roving reporter, resident Radical moderate and associate
(01:30):
editor of the Louisiana Weekly newspaper Louisianaweeekly dot Net. Joining us in the
Founder's Show is Simone Milaw's. She'sthe campaign director for Restore the Mississippi River
and Simone, I, Hi andI, you know, have both lamented
the loss of our coastline. ButI've got to give you some credit.
The reason why I was put intouch with you was because the Ponchatrain Conservancy
(01:53):
kind of opened my eyes to howwe've actually had some successes recently. So
just so understand this, I geta call from a friend of mine,
Anima Thurne, and said, Christopher, do you want to go out in
an airboat? I said sure,I always loved to go on airboat.
And I said you want to goout? You want to go out and
see Marty graro pass. I said, yeah, sure, why and this
sounds nice, but what's the catch? And she said, I want to
(02:15):
show you something? And so Iwent out with some of the Pondering Conservancy
to Marty gru Pass first out intonear the Breton Sound, and Hi,
I beheld eight hundred and eighty acresof land that was where water was twenty
years ago. Wait, it getsbetter, and this is Breton Sound.
This is right near Breton Sound.Wow. And so but I watched this.
(02:37):
Not only is this land back asland, trees are naturally calling much
of it as forests now, andthere it wasn't planted. Wow. Then
the next week I went out inan airboat not far away from there,
near Canaveron where there's a smaller diversion, and went and saw eleven hundred acres
that have been recreated where they plantedCyprus, where literally they was open water
(03:00):
a lake where there was nothing sosimoneilas. It's amazing that even though these
compared to all of our coastal lossmay sound small, these are thousands of
acres that came about by simply lettingthe Mississippi River put a little bit of
its uh fresh water in a littlebit of itself out into the marsh lands.
(03:22):
It was done naturally, it wasdone by as Mother nature. I
mean, it's it was incredible.I've been campaigning for this for years.
I used to go to the Armycor engineers to try to talk them into
it. They knew all about it, of course, and they have done
one big project down there now.It's to the west of the mouth of
the river. You probably know aboutit, and it almost looks like a
perfect square where they were able todo well, we're going to talk about
it. We can talk about that, okay, So Simonmila's if you would,
(03:44):
what is the state the state ofour wetlands at this point? Are
we making are we having some successrebuilding it? And we're going to talk
about the projects that are coming.So yeah, well, thank you Christopher.
First, thank you for having meon to you learn the first rule
about coastal Louisiana, which is neversaying know to a boat ride, So
good job on that, remember thatalways. And third, yeah, we
(04:05):
it is really unbelievable what the MississippiRiver still has the power to do,
right, and we all know that. That's how we're here in coastal Louisiana
today is because of that power ofthe Mississippi River. But you know,
Christopher just really hasn't gone away,and there are places where she still wants
(04:28):
to do what she wants to do, and we have had the fortunate experience
of being on the ground and greatgroups like Pontraitrin Conservancy have been monitoring it
and watching it happen. And that'san important story that we want to tell,
is how we and we reconnect tothe river. How many things,
how many opportunities can happen in anarea that frankly has been you know,
(04:53):
really devastated over decades. Let's faceit, I mean, we've lost effectively
some say the state of Rhode Island. Others have told me the state of
Delaware, but literally thousands of squaremiles of coastline. And thank them it,
folks, we'd have had twice thatmuch land if this tragic event had
not happened down here in Louisiana.Some think primarily because of the levees,
(05:13):
which they didn't know about at thetime, but also but also access canals
and a whole other points. Yeah, but all industry bringing in all What's
interesting Simon Milo's is that it doesn'ttake a whole lot to rebuild land.
And one of the things, letme so, I looked at the Marty
Gras Pass area, which is thislarge pass in about sixty eight thousand square
(05:36):
feet of silt rushing through sixty peryou know, per day, per year,
per year. At what I'm atCanaveron, which is right at the
where the federal flood control areas are, it's only eight thousand and eight thousand.
Since nineteen ninety one has rebuilt onethousand acres, So it doesn't take
(05:56):
a whole lot to do it.But I will tell you I went up
to back and rouge some of thoseand I started talking about this, and
immediately people you know, were suddenlywho used to be enthusiastic about it,
were suddenly very tight lipped. Becausethe biggest of these coastal diversions is coming
up in the Mid Barrataria diversion,and to say that there's some political opposition
(06:21):
to it after years of support isnot an understatement. It was pretty intense.
Can you talk about the biggest diversionthat we're planning and its potential,
but let's also talk about why there'ssome opposition. Yeah, So, kind
of starting back on the first threadthat we started there, Louisiana has experienced
(06:42):
a tremendous amount of loss. Itstarted the very moment that we cut off
the river from the wetlands, andthere's been so many, so many things
that have come along with that.We've learned a lot of really really important
lessons, and I would say thepast twenty years or so, obviously,
hurricanes Katrina and Rita were a realturning point and our state where we said
(07:03):
we can no longer do business thesame way. That's when we created a
new state authority. But most importantly, we started out with this comprehensive plan
to look at our coast and tobe able to put solutions in place,
to be able to you know,stem some of that landlaws. But it
(07:24):
really centers around the resources that wehave today. Of course, you know,
the most important of which is theMississippi River with the places that you
were able to go out. Well, let's start with Mardi Gras Pass.
That's a natural break, right,I mean, that is naturally happening on
the east bank of the river.But something like Conarvin was planned, planned
(07:45):
decades ago, literally decades ago,and put into place, and it was
only for fresh water. And sowe're able to see those two very different
things happen in real time. Whatwe do know, Christopher, from both
of those examples is that when youreconnect to the river, you can rebuild
(08:05):
wetlands, and that's the entire basisof the Mid Barritaria Sediment Diversion. Of
course, that's happening on the westside of the river into the really devastated
Barritaria basin. Not only do they, you know, have extreme amounts of
land loss in that basin, theyalso in less than three years ago,
(08:26):
got devastated by Hurricane Ida too,right, so some of that loss is
really fresh and is right there infront of our faces. So the concept
of reconnecting to the river with aproject like Mid Barrataria Sediment Diversion, it
really started decades ago. It previouslybegan with an idea on They shorthanded it
(08:48):
and called it. They called itMyrtle Grove, right, a reintroduction at
Myrtle Grove. And that's just thelocation on the river about which it happens.
But it's really just an idea thathas been around for a very long
time and it has been studied evenmore intensely in the past I would say
decade or more so when the DeepWater Horizon oil spill happened. We're very
(09:13):
soon approaching the fourteenth anniversary of thatwhen that happened, and it did come
with these fines and fees to mitigatethe loss that happened. Right, So,
the money that came as a resultof the oil spill were directly tied
to projects that needed to be implementedon the Louisiana's coast. So for the
(09:35):
first time there was possibly funding availableto build a project like Myrtle Grove.
And so that's really when that projectkicked into high gear. Christopher. It
took six years, six years toget the permit, to get a permit
or permissions from the US Army Corpsof Engineers to even build that. Wow,
(10:01):
not not in that means of politicians, not the army. People don't
know that the politicians control the ArmyCorps and they can only do what the
politicians let them do. That's afact. So the US Army Corps of
Engineers was obviously very integral into thatprocess because you were affecting, you know,
these so critical Mississippi River levees,et cetera. You were impacting other
(10:24):
federal projects. So it went throughan extensive, extensive review as part of
that permitting process. But even evenfor that oil spill money to be used
on those projects. It went throughanother review process. This process, I
thought, if you would Simone Melais joining Hi McHenry and Christopher Tidmore here
(10:45):
on the Founder's Show. She's talkingabout coastal restoration, particularly the Mid Barritaria
diversion, which is what she's themiddle level. And so we got six
years of this, six years ofthis, and we're pretty much on the
verge of actually going into the MidBarrataria diversion. And now the opposition in
Baton Rouge is coming from some ofthe oyster fishermen. Right. I've been
(11:05):
trying to figure that. I've beentrying to figure this one out because we
mentioned Canaveran that was to put freshwater into the basin to keep oysters alive.
So it's not like every diversion haswiped out our oysters. Some of
them helped it. But to say, I will tell you at the legislature,
if you talk about Mid Barrataria,people look at you and they start
screaming, you're going to kill Louisiana'saquaculture. And I said, well,
(11:28):
if you don't have a coastline,that's kind of pointless. But it is
It is a controversial issue wisely soContra River the way they've done it,
and again because of the Levees' onehundred fifty years ago, and they didn't
realize the devastating impact that has hurtthe ecosystem more than anything, we're trying
to restore that ecosystem. And youknow, if the oyster fishermen have a
couple of slow years because of that, when it all comes together, they're
(11:52):
going to have you know, bumpor crops. So they ought to be
thinking about that and maybe is thereany way we could move the oyster fisherman
to well other freshwater areas for oystersand and help them you know, see
that and help that get going whilewe're building back bigger oyster fields for them
along the coast. That's what it'sdoing for him. What is it go
ahead? Yes, So as partof that extensive review process, they did
(12:15):
consider impacts not just to oysters,but but to many other fisheries shrimp,
uh, to marine mammals, tobirds, right, I mean, to
all kinds. There's there's so manydifferent species and habitats right that have been
affected by land loss and that arepotentially could be impacted both both positively and
(12:35):
negatively because of something like the Midbritariasediment diversion. But that was extensively reviewed,
So hundreds of people worked on thesepermits and these plants. They received
thousands of comments, there were hundredsof public meetings all along the way,
and so there was a real andthat's not fun to talk about about how
(12:58):
many pea of documents were produced orhow many public meetings they had, but
it's really critical for folks to knowthat this just didn't happen overnight. This
just didn't happen on a whim.Because of those impacts. They did associate
some dollars to mitigate for that,right, and so there are almost four
(13:20):
hundred million dollars in mitigation projects builtinto this plan. And that doesn't even
include something that term that we use, which is called stewardship. Simon,
can you give the area that thiswill accomplish Mid Barritaria. Yeah, no,
no, no, no, no, no no no no, from
from the mouth of the river goingeast and the mouth of the river going
(13:43):
west. What is the full extentof this of this effort. Yeah,
so the impact area of obviously isnearly the entirety of the mid Barritaria Basin
or excuse me, the Barritaria Basin. And one thing to consider is,
you know you were talking talking aboutoysters, and obviously in coastal Louisiana there's
(14:03):
such a need for this delicate ballance. You know, too much salt water,
too much fresh water, and soit's really important that we keep that
balance in those basins, and projectsjust like this could could help stabilize define
the geographical boundaries of the barret Iknow where barritarias, but what you give
(14:24):
them define the boundaries. So theBaritari Basin itself is from Bayola Foush all
the way over to the Mississippi River. So that little pie wedge that includes
Grand Dial La Fee all on up, including some of the west, that
big square thing. I was talkingabout that group and I went out the
core was you know, I wantto know how did they do that?
(14:45):
And of course they told me Iknew, I figured how they did it.
Anyway, is that over about VermilionBay. So there's several different Oh
gosh, there's there's so many activeconstruction projects right now. And the Arrietaria
Basin alone, they just complete sevenmiles of a ridge. They call that
Spanish Pass they rebuild and at thetime was one of the biggest projects just
(15:09):
in the past couple of years.They call that Upper Barritaria marsh creation.
They have several other projects like byyou DuPont. All of that was all
marsh creation. So we hear thata lot about when you can dredge sediment
and almost always in this case forPlacamin's Parish, it comes from the river.
(15:31):
Right. They dredge the sediment inthe river and they pump it into
a confined area and they call thatmarsh creation, right. And so that
is one tool that we have inthe tool chest in a diversion, whether
it be sediment or fresh water.It's just another thing that you can do.
But because we're using that power ofthe Mississippi River, it does make
(15:52):
it more sustainable. Right. It'slike this ever evolving, always running kind
of Omelas who's campaign director of theRestore the Mississippi Delta campaign. One of
the things that you know, Hiand I've often looked at is basically and
put the tools in place. Inother words, make the openings. Do
that and mother nature will fix herselfyou. But you've got to be able
(16:18):
to give her the tools to doso. In this case, we're talking
about fresh water and silt, andshe will rebuild the coastline. It's not
you don't have to stop shipping onthe Mississippi River. A few places you
may have to dredge. You mayhave to dredge a little bit more than
you do that. That's because theriver levels going down a little bit.
But for the most part, we'retalking about something it doesn't affect our commerce.
(16:40):
The question is, though we getfour hundred million dollars. I keep
talking to these oyster fishermen and theseother aquaculture shrimp, so and so forth,
and I asked them because these areleases, and I said, well,
how are you moving? And itdoesn't seem like there's any thought that
this is going to happen. It'skind of strange. It's you know,
this could kill us. I said, well, what about mitigation to new
(17:00):
fields and effects long term? Yourquestion, how can this improve? And
it's very much well, this willwipe us out for three or four years
and we'll be dead thereafter. Sowhat's the point of it? And there
seems to be a breakdown in communication. You see where I'm coming from with
this yeah, yeah, yes,yes, And so you asked about that
earlier and I'm happy to address that. So obviously, you know, as
(17:22):
part of the evaluation process, theydid talk about impacts to oysters, and
you know, having several of ourgroups have worked in coastal Louisiana for decades,
and you know, we understand theevolution of oysters, We understand the
importance of the industry. And reallyit goes back to this whole conversation about
(17:45):
balancing all of these needs. Ijust talked about balancing freshwater and saltwater.
It's about balancing navigation with ecosystem needs. It's about balancing this species and that
species. But Christopher, I thinkthe one thing that we really really need
to discuss is what a future withoutaction looks like in coastal Louisiana. And
(18:07):
we have been making monster investments incoastal Louisiana. We for the past several
years, have been putting a billiondollars into our coast from one end to
the other, and all in aneffort to build, you know, the
New Orleans Levey System or rebuild Barrierislands. And we know that we cannot
(18:29):
take our foot off the gas pedalwe have to keep implementing these projects or
we're never ever going to be ableto think about you know, what a
future coastal Louisiana looks like. Thatisn't different. This is somebody said once
there is no status quo in Louisiana, right, and that certainly means coastal
Louisiana. So we do not talkenough about not building projects, not not
(18:56):
just mid Barritaria, but what afuture looks like if we do nothing.
Of course, we don't want todo nothing. We have this wonderful science
based master plan that has so muchreview that's built into it. We have
projects that have public input, thathave been vetted, that have to receive
federal permits and permissions to build it. And so you just mentioned about tools
(19:22):
in the tool chest and not takingany of those out. And so for
the money, right, because youcan talk about the ecosystem all that thought
high is a question. Excuse metwo things. First of all, I
want to define or describe in Layman'sterms. Let's say what you're what we're
talking about here, and that is, folks, what this means is you
(19:44):
punch a hole in the Mississippi Riverlevees on the gulf side, not on
the other unless you're down by St. Bnard and all that. Then you
could shoot water off and build upthat part of the UH coastal area,
which and they needed. That's themost deteriorated of all the areas. But
you punching holes in the levee andthen you run canals or big giant pipes
or whatever till you hit the gulf, and then all of that alluvial soil,
(20:08):
all of that silt rich silt thatis now heading all the way out
and being dumped out into the Gulfof Mexico way off coast doesn't do anybody
any good. Is now going togo back to what it used to do.
It's going to be building our coastand improving our estuaries, making things
a whole lot better than they everwere. We need to. We're losing
(20:30):
it's like close to I don't know, it's a thousand acres every day or
something. It's terrible with the landof loss of land that we're going through
right now. That's not helping anybodyout. People literally losing their farms,
their communities, little towns are disappearing. We need to stop that. We
need to reclaim the land, andthat's what this is about. Did that
make that? I say that clearlyfor a layman to understand. Simoon.
(20:52):
Yeah, so we're hearing that they'reabout to come up with some land loss,
some updated land lost, DTA.You know what we've been saying,
as we lose a football field ofland every one hundred minutes. And you're
right now reconnecting to the river andpunching those holes. But what we're doing
is we are building for control,right, So when we build this structure,
(21:15):
it has a massive amount of controlto it. It is. It's
not when when Christopher went out toNeptune Pass he saw it, there's no
structure. This is just happening naturally, and this is not the case for
this project. There will be gatesthat could be opened when the river is
high, they will be closed whenthe river is low, when there's a
storm approaching, et cetera. Sowhat you're paying for is control of that
(21:41):
reconnection to the river. Let meshare another thing about the fisherman. I
was a commercial fisherman years ago.Shrimp. I was a shrimper, and
I can tell you one thing aboutshrimp. They don't die, They're more
sturdy you'll never get It's like you'llnever get rid of roach's never got rid
a mesquites, never get rid ofpay. You're never gonna get rid of
shrimp. You could wipe out theentire shrimp population and a year later and
(22:04):
that they're not fish. Give ita one year break and at the end
of the year you would have bumpercrops. That's how productive and reproductive.
Reproductive, yeah, reproductive shrimp areand so anyway, But but I think
this is what's going on. Ithink these fishermen, especially the oyster skin,
they seem to be the greatest onesat risk. They're putting up such
a fight because you know what they'regoing for. They want the maximum reimbursements
(22:27):
they can get from the federal goal. Well, and I think that has
a lot to do with all theirscreaming house and some of some of them,
some of them see the leases theyown actually become useless. So some
of this is territory. There's alot more. It's more than there's of
projects this size and scale. Right, you know, one of the reasons
why you know this is a megaproject, right in terms of you know,
(22:51):
investing billion dollars or more. Right, it just really matches the size
of the problem, right that thatis how big of a problem that we're
facing in coastal Louisiana, is thatwe need projects of this size and scale
to to you know, stabilize coastalLouisiana, to protect these communities that need
(23:12):
these wetlands before them. Right.But so it's really it is really complicated,
right And there are there are impacts. There are both positive and negative
impacts, and we are certainly notnot death to that conversation into hearing about
those impacts. What we want todo is we want to be able to
(23:33):
talk through those We want to beable to have an understanding about what has
happened in the basin already, whatcould happen if this project is not built,
and then of course we want totalk about what happens if this project
is built. There are there areimpacts that have been identified here is there
(23:55):
is money associated with that. That'snot money that we have to go back
to DC or go back to batonRy not. Actually, if you can,
if you can help with if youcan hold that thought for a second,
because we got to take a greatcommercial break. Simone Malas of the
campaign to restore the Mississippi River Deltais joining us here on The Founder Show
with Hi mccknery and Christopher tid More. We'renna take quick commercial break. When
(24:18):
we come back, we're going totalk about what happens if we don't rebuild
our coast and the nightmare scenario,what happens if we rebuild it? Will
it be enough? With rising waterlevels? Rescue, recovery, re engagement.
These are not just words. Theseare the action steps we at the
(24:38):
New Orleans Mission take to make apositive impact on the homeless problem facing the
greater New Orleans area. New OrleansMission is a stepping stone out of that
life of destruction and into a lifeof hope and purpose. Partner with us
today go to www dot New OrleansMission dot org or make a difference by
(25:02):
texting to seven seven nine four eightAnd welcome back to the Founder Show.
And it's tapahih McHenry and I wantto know we're working very hard as always
to bring you the truth, thewhole truth, and another but the truth,
So help us God. And we'vegot a very exciting guest, Simone,
who is working very hard on howto restore our coastal areas, which
(25:27):
is a very important issue in thisstate. And this is Christopher Ted Morrisonmalis,
who is campaign director of to Restorethe Mississippi River Delta, is joining
us talking about some of the coastalrestoration projects that have been going, particularly
the Mid Barritaria project, which isafter years of planning, an endless study,
millions upon millions of dollars spent,is about to be kicked off.
(25:49):
It's a matter of some controversy inBaton Rouge. And but before we went
to the break Simon, we weretalking about, you know, the different
scenarios of what could happen. I'mvery fond, as many of the audience
knows. I spent years as amember of the Louisiana State Museum Board,
and we have the Hurricane exhibit atthe presbyter which we're updating actually for the
twentieth an version of Katrina, andthere's this wonderful diorama where it's actually a
(26:12):
game and you play it, andit's kind of a tragic game when you
think about it, but it showsyou, for the if you the more
trees and wetlands you have, themore you're protected against hurricanes, and so
you're the part of the game isyou're building up wetlands to protect you against
this. But the point of thesubject is, the reason why hurricanes seem
(26:33):
to feel like they're getting worse isnot just that the storms are bigger.
It's the fact that they're a lotcloser to the water that we used to
be hundreds of miles of wetlands protectingNew Orleans, Lafayette, Lake Charles,
even Homer and Thibodeaux had quite alot of protection wetlands that don't frankly exist
anymore. So how do wetlands protectus from major wind events and storms?
(26:56):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, something that we could talk about all
day. I love that they're findinga way to educate people, even even
with a fun game, to beable to talk about it, right,
But you know, the fact isis that we need to protect our hurricane
protection, right. You need somethingin front of those levees, and our
(27:17):
friends and our coalition partners at PontaTrain Conservancy have really coined this idea of
multiple lines of defense and that appliesso uniquely to coastal Louisiana. But it
really starts out at the Barrier Islands, interior marsh. You know, you
want to have levees. Of course, you want to elevate homes that may
(27:38):
be in risk. Get involves evacuationroutes, you know, So that idea
of multiple lines of defense is reallycritical in coastal Louisiana. And when we
talk about coastal restoration, we're talkingabout putting something in between you and that
hurricane levee protection. And so youknow, Louisian has lost over two thousand
(28:00):
square miles since nineteen thirty two.We talked about that earlier, whether it's
Rhode Island or Delaware. You know, that is an unbelievable amount of protection,
right, that came before you,before the East coastal community. And
think of this, folks, insteadof losing it, we'd continued to gain
it, we'd have an extra twothousand miles. So we basically lost four
(28:22):
thousand miles, right. And thefuture is also has you know, because
of these changing conditions, because ofyou know, these more powerful hurricanes and
you know, increased water levels.We are looking at you know, Louisiana
land loss that could double that aswe get to twenty fifty, right,
so you're looking at maybe losing anadditional four thousand square miles. But the
(28:45):
fact that you know we have thiswonderful master plan, we do have so
many that can be dedicated to this, and really importantly, we have folks
that care very deeply, not justin coastal Wi Cauisiana, throughout Louisiana,
and we have a lot of nationalattention here that could bring us some of
the dollars that we need to beable to keep up the work that we
(29:10):
have to do. It also meanstens of thousands of jobs this year alone,
where the annual spending is about onepoint seven billion dollars, and it's
estimated that that could create around eleventhousand jobs here in coastal Louisiana. And
so it's about the economy and evenmuch so more about the environment. And
(29:34):
you asked why did the FEDS putup this money, Well, because thirty
percent of our oil refineries and sixtypercent of our petrochemical refinement comes are basically
exposed. We knew after Hurricane Katrina, when the oil price spiked that if
you take out South Louisiana, youtake out most of the nation's ability to
(29:55):
refine oil and to pump it through. And so it's we've paid a price
by building pipelines, building canals,these wetlands help grows, but it also
got some national attention when these stormscame through of what is at risk.
And Simone Mallows is joining us.She's the campaign director of the Campaign to
Restore the Mississippi River Delta, andshe's talking about some of the coastal restoration
(30:15):
projects. And you said, yousaid it pretty bluntly, if we do
nothing, we lose another four thousandsquare miles. Let me translate that.
That's kind of like saying, well, let's see, uh, the west
Wego's beachfront property and uh if ifit's not the Mississippi River itself, so
the Garden District becomes the Mississippi coastline. You are if you want to
(30:38):
live in home and Thibodeau developed guillsand uh and pretty much anything south still
yeah, anything south, no,there's no way, and you'd be you'd
be like an oil refinery. Andand anything anything south of I ten of
Lafayett or Lake Charles is essentially underwater. If we don't read build it goost
on one of the things the thingsthat is not really I don't think they're
(30:59):
thinking of this. If that doeshappen. What happened to the oyster industry.
Their releases are way out in theGulf now that are useless to them.
So it's this is a benefit forthem. Yeah, they're going to
take some upfront uh problems and losses, but the federal government's going to reimburse
them. And I see that.I see the worries that come out of
this. But here's what here's whatI'm worried about to simone, and and
(31:23):
look, I'm not going to getwe get one hundred thousand people that will
give us emails whenever we talk aboutglobal warming and on this or that,
I'm simply going to say that,you know what man made natural avers.
We do know through scientific place thatthe warming period of the Earth is causing
(31:45):
sea levels to rise somewhat. Thatis that is that is happening right now.
So one of the questions I've beenposed is if we're spending all this
money to rebuild coastlines but sea levelsrise three or four feet, does it
matter will they be under or anywayby twenty one hundred. Well, those
are all things that are certainly talkedabout and considered when we think about what
(32:07):
happens in a future Louisiana. Right, So you know, one thing that
we have which is unique to Louisianaagain that makes us a little different,
is that our land sinks, notnot other you know, other places they
may sink a little, but becausewe are this beautiful delta, because we
are fairly new to six thousand yearsago the coastline was manned devel you know.
(32:29):
Yeah, because yeah, because ofthe material that makes itself neat.
Yeah, we we sink faster thanother people. And so so that makes
a big difference. So that thatsubsidence and how we sink on top of
these rising waters. And then whenwe talk about those land lass rates I
mentioned earlier about how you know,the average or the way to say that
(32:52):
people have been saying is that welose a football field of land every one
hundred minutes. Well, then youget a hurricane like Ida, and within
a matter of days you have lostone hundred square miles. One hundred square
miles for an event like that too, Right, And there's so much at
steak. We have, you know, five of the top twenty ports by
(33:14):
tonnage. We have, you know, such a huge commercial fishing industry,
We have a massive recreational fishing industry. Right, we have all these things
that are dependent upon Louisiana's natural resourcesin terms of our economy. So there
is so much at stake. Andlook, we haven't even scratched the surface
of culture, right, and whatmakes Louisiana unique and different. And I
(33:37):
grew up in Homa, and youcan't just transplant that somewhere else, right,
And so there are some of thosediscussions about what is really important and
valuable here in coastal Louisiana, youknow, in terms of the economy and
the people and the culture. Butwe really have to talk about the risks
(33:58):
that we face, the economic risk, the environmental risk. And that's one
thing. And I think that youknow, when we talk about we can't
ever have the coast that we usedto have. I think that we part
of our jobs, certainly in thenonprofit world, and part of being part
of these communities in coastal Louisiana istalking about risk and talking about what it
(34:23):
means to live in this community.You know, what it means how a
community can recover after a storm.We've been having these series of meetings talking
about the Coastal master Plan. Wehad a meeting in Belchase, and one
of the things that was talked aboutquite a bit was just called high tide
(34:45):
flooding or nuisance flooding. There arecoastal communities that are flooding now, not
even around a storm, not evenaround a tropical event. And so we
are hearing that from coastal communities andwe are we need, we need to
and the state has been has beentalking about it somewhat, about the risk
(35:06):
that is involved in coastal Louisiana.Yes, we're making these investments, but
we also need to talk about what'sat risk, both environmentally and you know,
with economics, what's what's happened.We're talking, we're talking. Let's
let's let's be very blunt. We'retalking about a million people being chased from
their homes, right. I mean, it's it's it's, it's it makes,
it makes even the evacuations from HurricaneKatrina sea mild in comparison. Simone
(35:31):
Mallis is joining us. She's thecampaign director for the campaign to Restore the
Mississippi River Delta. With him mcchenryChristopher Timbore here in the Founder Show,
and we were talking about coastal restoration. It's important, and particularly the mid
barritaria diversion, which has been thecontroversy in Baton Rouge. And uh and
how you had a quick question becauseI got another one. Yeah, one
of my theories on this, becauseit's been done in Florida. Uh.
(35:53):
Mangrove swamps are common in the SouthPacific or on the islands and whatnot.
They're magnificent. Uh. They nothingcan take them out Florida plant them.
And I've been through them and inthem, and I love mangrove swamps.
And why don't we plant mangroves alongthe coast. That is one of the
greatest buffers you could ever put there. And guess what they grow, which
(36:15):
means they help actually build the coast. They hold the silt. They're one
of the best silt holders you couldever get, and they create even a
wonderful estuary system. I mean,I think that would be one of the
best things we could ever do onour coast. Get some mangroves and plant.
I was talking about mangroves earlier today. So it's funny that that is
on our minds. You know,in coastal and deep coastal communities and I've
(36:39):
spent so much time around Port Fouchon. They have mangroves down there. They
are very brillion there, they're veryhardy. Well, so there is there.
That is just one example, andthis is kind of a term that
we use, and it's called naturebeast solutions, right, and I mean
mangroves naturally in some of these coastalcommunities. Another thing is oyster reefs,
(37:04):
right. Oyster reefs natural and nownow artificial oyster reefs are helping to ye
are helping to protect coastal communities,right. And so so this idea that
we can use nature and we shouldright use something that's very specific to the
community that either used to exist orstill exists. So that is really a
(37:25):
common theme and you'll see that alot in a lot of the planning that's
happening in coastal Louisiana. And honestly, we're leading the way for really nation
thinking about how we can kind ofput those nature based solutions into action where
we're not leading the nation and whereFlorida is eating our lunch, and it
would help a lot. Simone mellasis of the campaign to Restore the Mississippi
(37:49):
River Delta, is these areas,These wetlands are inexplicably beautiful. They're unbelievable,
and yet you don't we hear aboutSWA tours or something. But for
the most part, you don't havea culture like they have in the Everglades
where people want to go and towardthe Everglades, they want to see this.
We've done a really bad job ofmarketing what could be a huge economic
(38:12):
development tool as well as an educationaltool to show how important the wetlands is
and how important investment and saving themare. And we've done a really bad
job of it as a state.As in tourism officials, it's frankly is
journalists like me, you know.So yeah, And that's one thing that
we think about, right, wethink about a lot. How can we
increase access and increase visibility these areas. You went out, You know how
(38:36):
hard it is. It's not easyto get to some of these places,
and so we think about all thesedifferent ways that we can bring that to
people. I will say that ecotourism is certainly a growing side industry here
in coastal Louisiana. The birders,it is unbelievable. If you talk to
the birding community, how impressed andhow dialed in they are in coastal Louisiana.
(39:01):
And the great things about that isthat that just brings different audiences to
coastal Louisiana. They care about thebirds that migrate here through coastal Louisiana.
On the other side, you alsohave lots of different conservation groups ducks unlimited,
right, they care about birds injust a little different way, you
know, some of the fishing organizationsand those kinds of things. So we
(39:22):
do think about different audiences. Butyeah, I think a lot of people
think that, oh, that's Louisiana'sproblem, right. Another unique thing about
coastal Louisiana is that this is ourproblem. And so when we talk about
the commercial fisheries, when we talkabout the connectivity to the ports, when
we talk about the industries that arebased here, that is when the entire
(39:45):
nation feels where Louisiana is really importantto them. And so part of this
is a continuous education. Always.We can never think that anybody knows enough
about coastal from how we got hereto where we was, and that's thirty
percent of the nation's aquaculture that comesfrom here. They all's I here's great.
(40:07):
You know, I've spent a lotof time in the swamps in the
marshes of South Louisiana, a lotof time, especially in my earlier years,
and one of my favorite places ofall was the mouth of the river.
It is literally a water wonderland.It's solid rosos. I mean they
have a few trees, but it'smainly roses. Rosos is a grass of
marsh grass that grows like ten twentyfeet tall. It's astounding. And all
(40:30):
those bayous and waterways and ponds andwhatever that are back there surrounded by rosos.
You make the best duck blind youcould ever want to get. And
you see the most amazing wildlife.Alligators, bald eagles. One time I
counted about thirty bald eagles in justabout a couple of miles, all the
kind of fish you can think of, magnificent fishing of course, ducks and
(40:52):
geese, and even you're not goingto believe, it's hard to believe this,
but literally herds herds of swimming pigslive on those islands down there,
and they swear, Yeah, whata tourist, I mean, what a
thing to show tourists to come givethem a tour. It was I think
it's so beautiful, but it's gettingmen there. It takes an hour and
(41:14):
a half to drive to to agress point. So but to momus in
our last couple of minutes, Ido want to bring up one other political
issue. We've talked about the controversiesin Baton Rouge over the oyster fishermen and
the aquaculture with the mid Barritaria diversion. But there's another bigger issue and I
want to I'm a journalist, soI've got to throw this in your face.
You can duck it or take it. There is a discussion about welding
the Coastal Restoration Authority into the Departmentof Natural Resources and Energy, and of
(41:39):
course this was created by Garrett Gravesas a political subtext about this to focus
on the coast. And it's gota lot of people in your business of
rebuilding our coast very wary and franklya little nervous and scared at this initiative
by the Landry administration. What areyour thoughts on it? Yeah, you
know, I have a long backgroundand Louisiana. You know, I was
(42:01):
around from the very beginning of thecreation of CPR A I was. I
was of course around for Katrina andRita working in coastal Louisiana and you know,
doing this kind of restoration work.And it really even started with Governor
Foster and then you know before GovernorBlanco. This this has transcended gubernatorial administrations.
(42:22):
This has transcended you know, differentpresidential administrations. This is something you
know, coastal Louisiana. When afterKatrina and Rita and we said this,
this can't happen again. And insuch an effort was made, there were
congressional reports that said Louisiana can't dothis the same way anymore. And and
(42:45):
we really put together a program thatis not just something that the people of
Louisiana should be exceptionally proud of,but it's something that we are are looked
at nationwide Internationally. People admire whatwe've done here in coastal Louisiana and they
they talk about that, they talkabout bringing that to their communities Tampa.
(43:07):
Tampa is starting a master plan thatis thinking about how Louisiana had our coastal
master plans. So there is somethingto be said about how successful the coastal
program here is in coastal Louisiana andare my I represent a coalition that has
(43:28):
concerns about, you know, whatchanges to the program, what implications do
those bring? Yeah, of course, you know, we we're almost out
of time. I do, andI think there's a lot of opposition on
some fronts, but it's it's oneof the issues someone of somebody wants to
find out more about your organization asa campaign director of the Mississippi River Delta
(43:50):
Restore the Missipi River Delta, howwould they do it? Yeah, we
have a really great website, MississippiRiverdelta dot org, and we're a coalition
of organization and proudly punch a TrainedConservancy is part of that. Their website
is Science for our Coast. Theyhave a very cool app that you can
look at that that dials you directlyinto some of the science that they're doing.
(44:14):
They do a lot of water qualitywork and and so we're proud to
have them a part of our coalition. We talk about some of those really
big projects, including mid Barritaria sedimentdiversion. There's a lot of information and
including some myth busting, including somewhat are the differences between this and that?
Is this true? Is that nottrue. We try to tackle a
(44:35):
lot of that on our website.We'll check it again. Simon Mallows,
thank you so much for joining,and folks will that was great with the
patriotic moment right after these important mesters. Keep up the great work, Darlin,
keep it up. Thank you,yes, ma'am. Thank you back
after this bye. Give the giftof flowers by calling Villary's Florist to one
(45:00):
eight hundred VI L l Eri orvillariesfloorst dot com on the web. Flower
arrangements for every possible occasion. Locationson the north shore on Highway one ninety
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Give them a call one eight hundredVI I L l eri. E always
(45:22):
carry out roses, specials available.Folks. Call them one more time one
eight hundred VI l ERI and tellthem you heard it here in the Founder
Show. Folks, lets chaplin,Hi, McHenry, and I'm here to
tell you about our ministry, LAMBMinistries. We're in inner city ministry with
inner city focus and formula for innercity folks. Please check us out.
Go to our website Lambanola dot comthat's l A M B n O l
(45:45):
A dot com and find out allabout us. We're a very exciting ministry.
We've been operational for twenty eight yearsnow. We've seen about five thousand
kids come to Christ. We've seenhundreds more going to live very productive and
successful lives that they normally would nothave had. So if you're interested,
(46:05):
we need all the help we canget. We need prayer warriors, we
need financial supporters, and we needvolunteers. Just go to our website or
call me Chaplain High mac Henry ataera code five zero four seven two three
nine three six nine, and thankyou so very very much. Bide oos
(46:29):
ships. Well, folks are back, and this is Chaplinhi Machinry, and
you are listening to the Founders,show the voice to the founding fathers.
And it is no time for usto go into our chaplain. Bye bye,
patriotic moment. We just take abrief moment to remind you of the
biblical foundations of our country, ourJudeo Christian jurisprudence, and today we want
to talk about none other than SaintBrendan of Confort, a famous Irish missionary
(46:53):
who has actually belonged to Saint Patrick'sband. And what I mean by that,
Saint Patrick had one of the greatestrevival and missionary movements in the history
of Christendom. And it all startedwith him. He stomped up and down
Ireland and before you knew it,almost the entire island had converted to Christianity.
And then his followers from then on, for the next four hundred years,
(47:15):
filled Europe. They went into Asiaand Africa at bringing the Gospel,
saving civilization, if you will.And there were over one hundred universities founded
by these these great men and women, these saints of Saint Peter correction,
Saint Patrick. But there was oneof them. Did he get lost,
(47:35):
No, he just decided to gowest instead of east. And that was
Saint Brendan of Clonfort, who actuallyarrived in America in the mid sixth century,
and he went down the east coastall the way down to Florida,
and then he sailed back to Ireland. He was gone for a few years,
he and his band of monks andmissionaries, and when he arrived back
(48:00):
in America, he said something verypowerful. When you arride back in Ireland,
he said something very powerful, veryamazing. He said that he had
found the land that was going tobe the light upon the hill that would
illuminate the whole rest of the worldand bring deliverance to the entire world.
Folks, in a big sense,that actually happened. Time does not allow
(48:22):
me to develop that because we're runninga time for the show, but you
can check it out. It's absolutelyone of the most amazing stories in Christendom.
And there you have again another biblicalfoundation for America that predates everybody.
This is way before the colonial period. Of course, as far as we
know, these Irish monks were thefirst Europeans to ever arrive in America before
(48:45):
the Vikings, before Columbus, ofcourse, before them all, before the
Basque. There were other other peoplegroups that had been to America from Europe,
but they appeared to be the veryfirst ones. Perhaps that's why Columbus
made sure he had a couple ofhours seamen on his ship who knew the
waters and knew the stories of SaintBrendan and on the chapel in the chapel
(49:05):
wall at Annapolis, the Naval Academy, Service Academy. On the wall,
you will see a beautiful stained glasswindow of Saint Brendan of Comfort called the
Navigator, the Navigator, And sowe can see how God has had his
hand on this country, and somany Americans have understood that, recognized it,
and followed suit. But as Godhand on you, you need his
(49:29):
hand on you. You could bethe greatest patriotic American ever of all times,
biblical patriot. And yet you knowyou could still die and go to
hell if you didn't know this,and you need to know it. So
it is now time for us togo into our chapelain by by a gospel
moment. And again that's where Ijust take a short time to show you
how you can know that. Youknow that, you know you're God's child,
and you are going to heaven whenyou die, and you are safe
(49:51):
from a terrible burning hell. Andit goes like this, folks. The
Scripture says in John three sixteen,for God's soul love the world, that's
you, that's everybody. See,God is a great God of love and
mercy, and he would rather showthat. The Bible says he prefers mercy
to judgment. For God's so lovedthe world that he gave his only begotten
son. You see, because Godis a lover, he's a giver,
(50:12):
and he gave us his son,God, the Son, perfect God and
perfect Man, all the way Godand all the way Man. He gave
his only begotten son, the Lord, Jesus Christ. That whosoever, that's
you, that's me, that's everybody, everybody gets this chance. That whosoever
believeth in him, believe what inhim. He knew we had a big
(50:34):
love problem. It was broken upinto two things, sin and death.
And He took care of that loveproblem on the cross and out of the
grave. He took care of thelove problem, the sin problem when he
died for our sins. In thescripture says, his blood washed away all
of our sins. And then thatwas half the problem solved. The next
one was our death problem. Herose from the dead to win for each
(50:58):
and every one of us his preciousfree gifts of resurrection, everlasting life.
They dosoever believe it in him,believe this gospel message. That scripture says,
the gospel is the power of Godunto salvation, and the scripture says
the gospel. I declare to youthe gospel that Christ died for all of
our sins, courting scripture, wasburied and rose from the dead. According
to the scripture, that believe itin him shall not perish and not go
(51:21):
to hell, but have everlasting life. And folks, now you can know
that, you know that, youknow when you die, when you pass
away, you go on to theother side. You're going to the right
place where the Bible says Jesus hasa mansion waiting for you. Do it
now, folks, if you've neverdone it before. Don't wait till it's
too late, like the old countrypreacher said, and like the scripture says,
now today is a day of salvation. Well, folks, one more
(51:44):
thing left in the show. Andthat's where we go into either a testimony
time or a watchman on the wall, where we give you the warnings of
holy writ as to Jesus's second comingand how the end of this age will
come. Jesus said, there aremany signs this court of the Bible.
There there are two hundred signs inthe Bible for Jesus's second coming, one
(52:07):
hundred signs for his first coming.So maybe it's a second coming more important.
It's certainly very important, and thereare many of them. Time does
not allow, of course, togo through them all, but I usually
pick one or two and do themin this show. And today I want
to talk about the state of Israel. Did you know that Israel had to
be come back before Jesus could comeback? One hundred years ago? Everybody
(52:30):
said that was impossible. I don'tthink it's impossible anymore. They're one of
the most dynamic and powerful, creativenations in the world, bringing so many
good things. They're the fruit basketof Europe. They're one of the top
innovators of it technology. It justgoes on and on and on the things,
the great things that Israel has done. And yet you know, the
Bible says in the end, allthe nations of the world were turned against
Israel, seeking another Nazi holocaust toliterally kill every Jew in the world.
(52:54):
Folks, we're seeing the beginnings ofthat right now. You can't miss it
on the college campuses, you can'tmiss it in the un you can't miss
it in so many of the nationsof the world that are now are viciously
turning against Israel. That prophecy isbeing fulfilled right now before our eyes.
Folks, Jesus is coming back soon. Get ready for him. And the
(53:15):
best way in the world to getready is to go to him now,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusthim as your savior. Believe that he
did die for all your sins,was buried in rose of the dead.
Well, Folcus's not time for usto close with a mon Saint Martin singing
a creole goodbye, and God blessall out there we call you cl goodbye.
(53:38):
They think we're just wasted out thetime, all three sibl of me.
There's time for a creo goodbye.
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