The Lake Forest College Environmental Studies Program took the students from its senior capstone seminar, "Causes and Consequences of the Deepwater Horizon Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico," to New Orleans from October 15 to 19.

There the students saw first-hand the issues that make New Orleans, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Mississippi Delta a hotbed of important environmental issues.

We present here a sample of what these students learned during this trip.

Many thanks to the Mellon Foundation and the MacKenzie Fund for making this trip possible.

Viewing the Ghost of Louisiana Cypress Trees 10.17.10

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A ghost forest of cypress trees sprawled through the Bayou Bienvenue wetlands is the only remaining piece of the healthy ecosystem that used to be present.  During our trip to the Bayou Bienvenue wetlands we were able to visualize this environmental issue first hand—something that we had only studied on paper in class.  Being able to actually see the stumps of the previously vibrant cypress trees while having a guide, Amanda Moore, from the National Wildlife Federation as our guide allowed us to fully grasp the severity of the situation.  Amanda explained to us that the cause of this disappearing cypress tree forest is the manmade dredged channel called the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet).

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet is a channel that was designed to be a shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico into New Orleans; however, this plan did not work as anticipated.  It turns out that using the Mississippi River instead of MRGO was proven to be a much faster and cheaper option to get to the Gulf.  What’s even worse is that the consequence of keeping MRGO is that it will continue to alter the nature ecosystem in the area by allowing for saltwater to influx into the cypress forests which require freshwater to survive.  This increase in salinity has caused these cypress forests to become nothing more than stumps sticking out of water.  Amanda explained to us that there are a variety of ideas out there to fix this problem, but simply filling in the MRGO would cost an estimated $20 billion.  There are solutions to help save the cypress forest out there, and the National Wildlife Federation is collaborating with many other organizations to put these ideas into action.  Hopefully in the near future more people will be aware of the disappearing cypress forests, and do something to prevent these ghost forests.

— Jennifer Kurtz


Water in New Orleans 10.17.10

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Water.  It seems such a simple thing.  But for the people of New Orleans it is anything but simple.  It is the ultimate juxtaposition of life and death; a dance of salt and fresh water, a balance of safety and productivity, and a scramble to bring the understanding of water’s intimate connection between its people and the natural environments of the Mississippi Delta.  To understand the water of New Orleans is to understand the whole of nature.  Our guide for the day, Amanda Moore of the National Wildlife Federation, knows this.  Each day she works to help everyone understand, educating and reminding us of our connections with nature.

Even though water has a tremendous impact on the lives of the people of New Orleans, you hardly even glimpse any water as you drive around the city.  To see the ‘Mighty Mississippi’ or the expansive Lake Pontchartrain, you must go unnaturally uphill, to the tops of levees often built with scarce Louisiana dollars.  For a coastal city built on river sediment, it seems bone dry.  And, as unusual as it seems to go uphill to water, it more salient how close life lives to death here.

The man-made canals and waterways in New Orleans produce economic life for its people, but also produce salty death for its freshwater cypress swamps and coastal marshes.  The levees provide safety from flooding and hurricanes, but deprive it of its land building as it slowly drowns anyway without a new supply of river sediments.

Mostly, New Orleans seems to need its people to understand—that what is needed for life in New Orleans is the right kind of water in the right places at the right times.  Who said water was simple.

— Kim Harmon

Grand Isle Beach 10.16.10

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Going to the beach at the Gulf coast blew my mind.  The first things I noticed at the beach were the oil rigs in the horizon.  I have never seen a rig before so I have always imagined that there would be one single rig in the middle of nowhere.  I now know that there are many, sometimes hundreds, right next to one another.  I also did not expect for them to be visible, yet there they were.  I counted more than six in sight, which makes me wonder how many there must be that are not visible to the public.

The entire time we were at the beach, there was wildlife around and, although I had seen it on TV, it wasn’t until I was there in person that I realized what we are doing to their environment.  First, there were the shrimp boats which seemed to be right next to the oil rigs.  This made me realize that we are getting our food from the same exact area in which we are getting our oil!  This amazed and disgusted me because our food must be contaminated from an early point of its life.  Next, we were able to see dolphins swimming in their natural habitat, and as I watched them swim away, I felt sad because of what humans have done to their environments.  I felt lucky to have seen these dolphins swimming, because four months ago they probably would have been washed up on the beach, dead.  I was also able to see jellyfish, hermit crabs, many different types of birds, and tar balls.  As I was picking up the tar balls, I realized how much we have impacted and destroyed the homes of many different creatures.  This was such an impacting experience because I was able to see it first hand.  I have seen and heard about this on TV and in class, but it is a completely different experience to be there and see it.

— Ana De La Torre