Beads on wires, beads on trees. I think it's one of my favorite times in the city, just after Mardi Gras. The crowds are gone, the streets are quieter, no more parade traffic, but the beads are still there, still shiny and pretty and hanging from anything that can be hung on to. Eventually, maybe a couple months from now depending on the rain, the beads will fade and dull and bleach in the sun. Eventually, they'll be sad little reminders of a party, mini-invitations for next year's shenanigans. Kinda pathetic, really. But for now they're still lovely.
But there is another Louisiana I saw today. I'm doing a project on river diversions to create new wetland. My partner, Brandi, and I, with her husband, drove to one such diversion, Caenaveron, this morning. After what can only be described as an adventure getting to the ferry, we crossed the river to the side heavily hit by the Katrina surge. It's amazing, really, and I don't understand the science of it. How one side of the river is fine and the other leaves nothing but shattered skeletons of homes and empty foundations. I think the diversions are important. I think they could work, in theory. But, heavens, it seems like chump change sized up next to all the destruction. And I suppose that is my state's dilemma these days.
There is so much that's gone wrong for Louisiana, some by luck and some by its own lunacy, inaction, and readiness to sell to the highest bidder. How many price tags are there? How many homes to rebuild? How many street lights to repair? How many deaths to mourn? How many businesses demolished? How many schools still unopened? How many acres of wetland destroyed? And that last one, that wetland question, it pales in comparison of importance for almost everyone. Including myself. If you asked me today would I rather see an uprooted family back in their pre-Katrina home, rebuilt and happy, or see an acre of wetland restored, I would quickly choose the former. And I am one of the educated ones on this issue. Environmental impacts, environmental law: this is what I've chosen as the focus of my legal education. I KNOW the link between wetland destruction and New Orleans' fragility to future hurricanes. I know that the wetlands are our best defense. I know that we brought this on ourselves to some extent, that the failure of the levees is one thing, the wholesale prostitution of our wetlands another. But wetlands do not have a face, despite their importance, they do not evoke the same emotional reaction as a family left homeless. Because I can vaguely imagine that feeling of human helplessness, what it would feel like to have your home rotting and worthless before you. It did not happen to me, but it came close, close enough for me to smell what that flavor of despair must taste like. How do I empathize with a wetland?
Unfortunately for the future of the wetlands, Louisiana's best hope, they do not cry loud enough. Which isn't to say that you can't have both, restoration of the communities themselves and the wetlands. But I feel like there must be an end to the money somewhere, that it's impossible to get in the first place, and when there's a shortage the windfall will go to building more homes in flood plains, and the wetlands will be left to fend for themselves (with the small but mighty support of environmentalists) against OIL and DEVELOPMENT (such wealthy patrons deserve all caps).
Today, after seeing a diversion which made me hopeful, and the destruction, which made me sad...the emotional balance weighs heavily in favor of pessimism. But despite everything, driving back, seeing the beads in the trees, I could not imagine a world without this city, this deltaic wonderland, so it has to work. River diversions, green spaces, urban planning, education and health care reform...all these ideas swimming around, they simply have to work.
(picture courtesy of Jason Rinehart, photographer extraordinaire)
