Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America's Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast - Hardcover

Hallowell, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060194464 ISBN 13: 9780060194468

Publisher: Harper, 2001

Synopsis

Americans continue to coexist with nature only warily, in spite of our vaunted environmental stewardship. Nowhere is this complex relationship more visible than in the Mississippi River delta in South Louisiana, the country's largest unpreserved wetland. Here, more than three million acres of marshes and swamps nurture more seafood and produce more oil and gas than any other region of the country except Alaska. Yet this expanse of raw natural beauty, almost unknown outside the region, is in danger of collapse. New Orleans is in particular danger as sea levels rise and the city sinks, leaving tens of thousands of inhabitants to face the consequences if a horrific storm should strike.

Holding Back the Sea intimately and eloquently exposes the vulnerability of this stark land that spreads along the Gulf Coast, as it literally vanishes -- at rate of twenty-five square miles per year, an area the size of Manhattan -- so starved for lack of nutrients, so eroded away by ever more severe storms, and so dredged for canals that it is on the verge of being swallowed by the rising Gulf of Mexico. Holding Back the Sea bears witness to an environmental crisis of staggering proportions that not only threatens this coast but has plunged the people who depend on it into a moral quagmire.

Christopher Hallowell uses this crisis as a window through which to clearly and comprehensively examine a cultural characteristic, or flaw, that Americans have historically exhibited: the reluctance to recognize the finiteness of nature -- as much a part of this country's history as is its people's independence -- while at the same time proclaiming their devotion to it. In Louisiana, this emotional split of using while abusing threatens the entire region's economic foundations and has profound implications for the rest of the country. Louisiana is not alone; its predicament stands beside an array of environmental case studies: clear-cutting in Virginia and Tennessee, exhausting water resources in the Southwest, polluting Chesapeake Bay, filling in wetlands around San Francisco Bay and Long Island Sound, and fouling the Great Lakes.

Through the varied use of narrative voice and rich description, Hallowell, a journalist, writer, and educator, brings into focus South Louisiana's dilemma through the people involved -- from engineers to politicians to scientists to fishermen -- to show both the marsh's and the people's fragility and vitality. There is no more important topic than the way we use nature and our natural resources and our willingness to defer to nature. Holding Back the Sea is at the heart of that conversation.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Hallowell is a professor of English and journalism at Baruch College, City University of New York. He is the author of People of the Bayou, and coauthor and editor of Listening to Earth and Green Perspectives, and he lives in Brooklyn, New York.

From Publishers Weekly

Zydeco music and crayfish etouff‚ may exemplify the exuberance of south Louisiana, but few Americans understand that the state's 3.5 million acres of coastal wetlands long considered permanently unexploitable wasteland are vanishing, with dire consequences for the region and the nation, according to Hallowell. With a million acres of marsh irrevocably lost, and an area the size of Manhattan dissolving into the Gulf of Mexico annually, Hallowell forcefully argues why this crisis should be of paramount concern to every American. New Orleans and its environs are already prone to flooding, he observes, and the region's petroleum production infrastructure a 20,000-mile labyrinth of pipelines crisscrossing sinking marshes (through which nearly a quarter of America's domestic crude oil and natural gas production flow) remain vulnerable to unimpeded tidal surges from severe hurricanes. Investigating bureaucratic blame games and rivalries, he examines the quandaries and varied ethos of researchers and remediation experts as they struggle to stem the deterioration of this natural buffer zone. From staggering statistics and personal glimpses into the lives and histories of the locals, Hallowell crafts a coherent, engrossing narrative. In his view, the bayou inhabitants display a "bewildering mix of adoration and abuse" of the region's natural beauty and abundance, given their acquiescence to the petroleum industry's rampant dredging and dumping; their conflicting attitudes represent a microcosm of American attitudes toward environmental stewardship. The federal government, Hallowell concludes, must commit to a massive program for saving the wetlands and a balance between preservation and "wise use" of its resources.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0060194464
• ISBN 13: 9780060194468
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288