In this aerial photograph, the tattered wetlands of eastern New Orleans sit between the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, on the right, and the Intracoastal Waterway, on the left. The open waters of Lake Borgne can be seen in the background. David Grunfeld / The Times-Picayune

By Kim Chipman Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Carlton Dufrechou can fly 10 minutes from New Orleans and be over the open waters of the Mississippi Sound. Two decades earlier, before erosion took its toll, he would have looked down on lush wetlands. The destruction accelerated four years ago last month, when Hurricane Katrina struck. The third-deadliest storm in U.S. history claimed more than 1,800 lives, displaced 1 million residents and damaged more than half of New Orleans’ housing stock. Katrina also wiped out 80 square miles of marsh within hours, four times the amount lost by the entire state in a year. “Nothing close to that kind of one-day loss has ever happened in the country,” said Dufrechou, 53, an engineer and head of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, which is trying to restore wetlands in New Orleans and 16 Louisiana parishes. … By some measures, New Orleans is coming back. Its population, which plunged 60 percent to about 187,500 after Katrina, climbed above 300,000 in March. Tourism more than doubled to 7.6 million visitors last year from 3.7 million in 2006. Jobs have rebounded to 71 percent of their pre-Katrina level, according to Greg Rigamer, a local demographer and political consultant. The wetlands keep disappearing. The state has lost 340 square miles in the last four years, including about 220 square miles claimed by Katrina and Rita, said Garrett Graves, the top adviser on coastal affairs to Louisiana’s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. The area west of New Orleans, across the Mississippi River, is “the fastest-disappearing land mass on earth,” said St. Pe, the marine biologist. Wetlands rank with rain forests and coral reefs in ecological importance, environmentalists say. They harbor plants and wildlife and function as natural sponges to buffer coastlines against water erosion and floods. Katrina would have been less devastating if wetlands hadn’t disappeared. …

Disappearing Wetlands Taint New Orleans’ Rebound From Katrina via The Oil Drum