June 11. 2005 1:37AM
Discovery Channel’s 'Coastal Crisis’
already making impact
By LAURA McKNIGHT
Staff
Writer
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HOUMA -- Most of us know our land is steadily slipping
away and scientists and researchers are busily studying ways to keep
the Gulf of Mexico out of our backyards, but what have they
accomplished?
A Discovery Science Channel documentary
premiering tonight showcases the efforts of Louisiana scientists and
researchers in tackling land loss and how their breakthroughs could
help declining ecosystems across the globe, according to show
producers.
"I’m not sure everyone thinks the science is
there to solve the problem," said Val Marmillion. "I think that this
film makes a compelling case that the science is there."
Marmillion, a Houma native, is president of the public
relations firm Marmillion + Company, which conducts the national
"America’s Wetland" campaign.
The campaign, a state effort
to draw national attention to Louisiana’s land loss, partnered with
the Discovery Science Channel to create a documentary on Louisiana’s
vanishing wetlands and the science of restoring what’s already been
lost.
"It really demonstrates that Louisiana is an emerging
leader in the science of coastal restoration," said Marmillion. "It
just has a lot of interesting facts and figures that I don’t think
you would think about on a daily basis."
The show, titled
"Coastal Crisis: The Vanishing Lands," was produced by Arlington,
Va.-based 62 Blue Productions. Parts of the documentary were taped
in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes, and the show features a number
of Louisiana scientists, researchers and coastal-advocacy leaders.
Local figures featured include Denise Reed, a University of New
Orleans professor who sits on the Terrebonne Parish Coastal Zone
Management and Restoration Advisory Committee, and Gary Fine,
manager of the Golden Meadow Plant Materials Center.
"It’s a
knock-out show," said Sharon Alford, director of the Houma Area
Convention & Visitors Bureau, who saw the show during one of
several sneak previews. "It was interesting to those of us who live
here, those of us who are being touched by the problem."
Filmmaker Joshua Berkley said he dives deeper into the
subject of his work when a place or its people grab his heart. He
said that’s what happened when he met the people who live in south
Louisiana and the scientists and researchers working to save the
land and culture.
"I was sort of embarrassed that I didn’t
know about this crisis that’s happening in our own country," he
said.
Berkley said he felt compelled to learn more about the
problem so he followed Louisiana scientists into the trenches, where
they’re "digging in the swamps to find the solutions."
"Whenever there’s something that shocking, you know there’s
a good story there," he said.
Berkley said by
unveiling the science, the issue becomes more believable to those
outside Louisiana.
The documentary also links Louisiana to
the science community, said Marmillion, already forging a
relationship with a top science magnet school in Virginia. The
connection is important, Alford said, because it’s reaching the
nation’s future scientists.
Andrew Miller, 18, a senior at
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in
Alexandria, Va., said his experience with the show sparked his
interest in finding new and better solutions to the problem of
coastal erosion.
Miller recently visited the Houma area with
his science teacher and football coach. The Virginia group toured
south Louisiana from Bourbon Street to the barrier islands, and
attended a preview of the documentary in Baton Rouge. Members of the
Virginia school’s football team, helped illustrate Louisiana’s land
loss in the film.
"When we filmed it, I didn’t know what we
were in for, but when we saw the movie it was spectacular," said
Miller.
Miller said the show gave him a good look at the
scientific and technological issues surrounding the problem,
revealing the full scope of the issue. "People should watch the
documentary because if they don't know or care about the issue now,
they certainly will after seeing the film," Miller said.
Coach Tim O’Reilly, an avid outdoorsman, said riding past
missing barrier islands and degraded marsh made him sad, but
watching the video "brought home" the magnitude of the issue.
The show uses computer-generated images, interviews,
time-lapse photography and other methods to draw attention to the
science and the history of the Louisiana delta. It examines the
threat land loss poses to communities, wildlife habitats, the
nation’s energy and economic security and seafood supply, the
world’s largest port system and an ecological treasure.
The
video explains how the Mississippi River created the delta over
thousands of years, how its flooding regularly dumped soil on the
area and how the 1927 leveeing of the river to prevent flooding
stopped that process. The show sheds light on Louisiana’s loss of
1,000 square miles of land during the past 50 years.
The
documentary also features hurricane impacts, restoration techniques
and the Mississippi River model scientists use to check river
pressure and demonstrate freshwater diversion. Details on New
Orleans’ pumping system provide insight about the danger of flooding
to the Crescent City and surrounding areas.
"This is an
incredibly complex area," said Waterfall. "Let’s hope that there’s
hope for this area, not only for the richness of the delta, but the
richness of the people."
Besides the land loss, Berkley said
he was also taken aback by locals’ apathy toward their gradually
disappearing turf. As a visitor, "I see it in a much more shocking
and dramatic way," he said. "I hope the film brings a sense that it
isn’t OK, this isn’t the way it has to be."
Back to the Delta Chapter Sierra Club.
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