What's Wrong/ Right with New Orleans?
The trip I took to New Orleans and Baton Rouge, esp in the light of Gustav was incredible for what I saw of the continuing devastation & grief and the courage & spirit of those addressing & solving problems. A good outcome of Gustav seems to be national attention to the ongoing & outstanding problems there, arguably at a time when we are all more aware of the global issues of global warming that are contributing to the regions woes (and opportunities).
The conference on sustainable deltaic modeling at LSU was amazing for the range of addresses to the local problems of wetlands restoration in the face in increased hurricane activity. I took 33 pages of notes from both days (see excerpt below).
New friends from the region and friends here who live in New Orleans during the winter have been in touch, comparing thoughts since Gustav. I also have several hundred photos from the trip and I hope to do a couple Virtual Concerts with folks I met. The first is scheduled for September 16.
I felt the scientists struggled with how ecological artists can be part of the solution. Artists as illustrators is familiar but not artists as equal partners to designing solutions. It helped when I used the word, "dirt." Then they were puzzled but enthusiastically intrigued.
Generally what I saw, was the extent to which New Orleans is a paradigm for the realities of how we must adapt to our dependence on natural resources if we are to survive what is now being called the anthropicene age. I also got lots of reminders of WHY the region so interests me. The solution, to which I think we as artists can pro-actively contribute, is in designing, as Dr Denise Reed particularly inferred in her talk at LSU, for the human infrastructure around the dynamics of a hurricane based (wetlands) ecology world wide.
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Everyone I spoke to is aware of the difficulties in implementing solutions. Local business people-politicos are now extremely engaged in the (excellent) science being done. Former Gov Blanco spoke to us the first night of the conference (Monday). She continues to push, even out of office to find acceptable compromises between oil interests and ecological imperatives. She stated that had she knowm, she would have told Pres George Bush up front from the beginning, that reconstrcution would cost $50 billion.
New Orleans is the most important port in this country for oil & gas. Those industries have devastated the incredibly rich ecosystem, which also happens to be the one of the most fecund deltaic systems in the world (most migratory birds in the North American continent need the system at some point for their life cycle).
Onshore oil and gas production during the 1960's and '70's devastated the natural ecosystems. That work accelerated subsidence. Oil and gas exploration canals and pipelines dissected right thru wetlands and barrier islands. This altered local hydrology, creating new pathways for saltwater intrusion. The combined effects of these processes made the city more vulnerable to the increasingly more powerful storms we've been seeing.
Coastal oil and gas production in coastal Louisiana has probably resulted in ten percent or more of the land loss problem. But fees and severance taxes from oil and gas production now comprise the major source of funding for the restoration effort.
It is interesting that these extractive industries have figured out that it is in their interest to restore what they have destroyed. Without necessary restoration work, they will have no platform from which to operate. Paradoxically, the perpetrators of local degradation are now making amends by being the largest source of funding for restoration work. But many suspect the catch-22 between ecosystem fragility and extractive processes makes it impossible to go as far as is necessary.
An unexpected problem seems to be the plethora of planners & community people trying to input into comprehensive plans, with sentimental attachments & variegated education about the natural resource issues. The local & federal politics are immensely complex & Byzantine, small-townish, caught up in feudal family histories, racial tensions, etc along with the exacerbated routine Republican vs Democratic stuff. Ironically, the Repub governor seems to be doing a good job, by all accounts. The Army Corps, is divided between local officials who are fairly aware of what needs to be done & eager to do it and federal level offices, which hamstrings them.
Administrative red tape is apparently the largest problem of all, endlessly delaying critical earmarked funding. For that reason, activism has stepped into the breach with good effect. My observation was that it's too simplistic, at least for New Orleans, to place blame or laurels on any demographic- whether business, science, art, community activists or politicians. Yes, there are a few individual villains, but mostly the problems are caused by personal/human issues and agendas that everyone seems to trip over.
The heroes are those who show up & keep plugging away at the solutions and coalitions that need to form and in many cases, have formed. The place of artists in this mix is a major uphill battle. I don't know how much Dan Cameron will chip away at that with his projected biennale. I do know that this situation tests the old-fashioned notion of artists (or anyone) as the white knight. The solution will be in the success of a pretty jumbled mosaic. What is most interesting to me, is that many of those models for solutions are essentially indigenous ones, as the design solutions are as well, for example, building on stilts. The science is good and scientists and NGO’s know they need artists but many are also pretty hide-bound so far in conceiving of how that will work.
Modeling plays a big role because it is the leverage to illustrate do-nothing consequences. I think LSU will be taking a major role in bridging some of the divides. They have initiated a new school of coastal environmental sciences and were open to discussing how artists could be involved.
