SoLa: Louisiana Water Stories
(2010), 60 minEverywhere you look in Southern Louisiana there's water - rivers, bayous, swamps, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico. And everyone in Cajun Country has a water story, or two or three or more. Its waterways support the biggest economies in Louisiana - a $63 billion a year oil and gas industry, a $200 million a year fishing business, tourism and recreational sports. They are also home to some insidious polluters: The same oil and gas industry, 200 petrochemical plants along a 100-mile-long stretch of the Mississippi known "Cancer Alley," the world's largest Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico and erosion that is costing the coastline twenty five square miles of wetlands a year. At the same time SoLa is home to one of America's most vital and unique cultures; if everyone who lives there has a water story they can also most likely play the fiddle, waltz, cook an etouffe and hunt and fish.
Learning Questions
1. How many million tons of silt are produced by the Mississippi river each year?
2. In what way do coastal wetlands play a role in reducing the impact of hurricanes?
3. Between 2000 and 2006 how many acres were logged in the Cyprus swamps in Louisiana?
4. What is the “dead zone”? Why does it exist?
5. How much money does Louisiana’s oil and gas industry generate each year?
6. Explain three main changes in coastal life and communities after the BP oil spill.
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