Dardar is a member of the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe that shared the bayous of South Terrebonne Parish La. with another tribe, Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe. Throughout the parish are canals and Dardar frequently takes guests of the Tribe’s visitor center out on his boat. But the boat rides are only part of the experience. Dardar’s boat is a time machine. He takes you on a journey through time, recollecting the time when the bayous and canals that crisscross the Mississippi River Delta in Terrebonne Parish were once filled with houses where he grew up. 

What was once a robust community of Native Americans who thrived on the land they lived on through fishing, farming and strong family ties, is now mostly marsh for the Pointe-Au-Chien Tribe. The land Dardar grew up on is just a memory and is now replaced with spindly dead trees, thin strips of land that peak through the high waters, and eye-sore signs that say, ‘Warning – Do Not Anchor or Dredge Crude Oil Pipeline Crossing.’ 

Amongst the desolate water ways are gems, and luckily Dardar knows just where to find them. Because Dardar grew up navigating the water with his father, and still goes out frequently, he knows the maze of canals by heart. Like he knows the back of his hand, Dardar steers the boat to a beautiful, bright orange tree grove that looks like it belongs in The Wizard of Oz and not on a dying strip of land surrounded by dying trees. The only sign of thriving greenery on the ride, has bigger than palm-sized oranges that actually taste like lemons. And if by chance, the weather is right and Dardar navigates skillfully -as he always does- you’ll get to see a couple bottlenose dolphins playing through the canals and circling the boat.

But, neighboring the now marsh, that the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe use to occupy, is another vanishing community. In fact, it’s a vanishing island. Isle de Jean Charles, home to the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe, is a sinking and eroding land that is still trying to survive the water surrounding it. And not only is the land clinging on, so are the people who inhabit it. 

The Isle de Jean Charles Tribe are descendants of three historic tribes that fled the bayou, hoping to avoid forced relocation by Indian Removal Act in 1830. Now in a similar situation again, members of the tribe have to leave their homeland, not escaping persecution, but the climate that is eating away their ancestral land.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the state of Louisiana loses about a football field’s, 2,000 square miles, worth of land by the hour. According to a NASA study, New Orleans, including the Upper and Lower 9^th Ward, the land is sinking up to 2 inchers per year. Now Orleans’ Lower 9^th Ward, somewhat an island of its own, is still recovering from the devastating Hurricane Katrina and is now facing more climate issues with coastal erosion. 

In the United States, coastal erosion from rising sea levels has been on the rise. According to the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, the United States lost an area of wetlands larger than the state of Rhode Island between 1998 and 2009.

Globally, the sea level has rising as well. Over the past century, global sea level has risen; in 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches above the 1993 average— which was the highest annual average in the satellite record. Sea level continues to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch per year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Isle de Jean Charles has shrunk 98% since 1955. Due to a number of climate-related issues like rising sea levels, erosion, and hurricane damage, the people on the island are once again having to pick-up their lives to relocate, leaving the land paramount to their culture.

The people of Isle de Jean Charles, natives and non-natives, have been coined America’s first ‘climate refugees,’ by the New York Times, but that doesn’t sit well with residents. The term ‘refugee’ is used for people crossing international boarders seeking asylum, this isn’t the case for the Isle de Jean Charles residents. Cookie Naquin, niece of the Chief Albert Naquin, says she doesn’t care for the term. 

I’d rather not be called that [refugee],” Naquin said. “I’m human just like them.”

Once diligent fishermen and farmers, the land provided for the tribe and shaped their very lives and is the epicenter of their culture. Tribal Chief Albert Naquin, whose ancestors, Jean Marie Naquin and Pauline Verdin, founded the island, distinctively remembers his tribe living off the land. His mother and aunts would garden tall okra plants, peas, tomatoes and beans and would all cook together. His father and uncles would fish for trout and farm, raising cows and pigs. They were a community that lived off the land and shared everything, keeping family ties strong.

All of that has changed now. Families have moved off the island, most of the island has disappeared, and because of the saltwater intrusion fishing and gardening is no longer done on the island. 

“It’s like night and day,” said Chief Naquin. “We used to walk on both sides, used to see the land, see grass. Where we use to walk, we use boats now.” 

Chief Naquin remembers running through water on the island as a child, but now, things are much different. 

The only way on and off the island is a narrow, water-eroded road built in 1953 through the past marshland that has since been washed away. Island Road is prone to flooding during tropical storms, high tides and even strong winds that push the current.  Consequently, most islanders have high, rusty pick-up trucks to make sure they can leave, or get to the island during inclement weather. 

Now, the island houses less than 20 families and a couple fishing camps. The families remaining are nothing but resilient. Most of the remaining homes on the island are abandoned, decaying from past hurricanes or sit tens of feet in the air, towering over what used to be. The homes that are still there are islanders who do not want to give in to the resettlement proposed by the government. The remaining families don’t plan on moving off the island anytime soon and have “Not for Sale,” signs in their yards to prove it.

In 2016, a $48 million “climate resilience” grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development was set aside to resettle the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. This was the first allocation of federal tax dollars to move an entire community battling climate change. The resettlement of the community has been a heart-breaking and frustrating situation for the residents.

“It’s like someone pulling your heart out,” said Naquin.

Scott Hemmerling, director of Human Dimensions at the Water Institute of the Golf, said that the tribe will suffer from the resettle efforts. 

“How do you just move a culture?” Hemmerling said. 

The resettlement was originally to take place in 2016 but was given an extension to 2020. An old sugarcane plantation was purchased for the residents and new homes were to be built. Unfortunately, still no houses have been built yet. For the island residents who sold their homes and were told they’d be moving into the new ones on the purchased land, life has been moving from place-to-place waiting for their new community to be built. 

“You’ve got almost $49 million that the state has had for four years, and nothing has been done,” said island resident Johnny Tamplet. 

The land itself is vastly different than the island. The sugarcane field is sandwiched between two very busy highways with very little greenery and certainly not near any waterways. If to move there, residents would be giving up their homes, their land, and their heritage. 

Construction on the 515-acres of land located just of LA 24 next to the Gulf of Mexico Chevron Preservation and Maintenance Facility was supposed to start in March of 2016, but when we visited the area in early March of 2020, the field was still just that, a dirt field more suitable for farming than establishing a community of people. 

The story of the island tribe

The mistreatment of Native Americans is nothing new, and especially for this tribe. From the Trail of Tears, to the Indian Removal Act, up to now in 2020, the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe has been counted out. 

Like the blood flowing through their veins, so does their tribe’s roots roam through the island’s land. The natives of the Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes in Louisiana were people from five different tribes- the Biloxi, Chitimacha, Choctaw, Acolapissa, and Attakapas. They all came together in the 1790’s, but the majority were from the Chitimacha tribe and were believed to be there before the arrival of Europeans, according to the Daily Advertiser La. newspaper.

Simultaneously in 1785, Frenchman Jean Charles Naquin arrived in Louisiana aboard the Le Saint-Remi, fourth of seven ships carrying Acadians that were exiled from Canada. He and his wife Marie Madeleine Gabriel Laboeuf settle into Platttenvile Louisiana, giving birth to Jean Marie Naquin and three other children

In the 1830’s President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act ordering the forced removal of Natives from their land in southern states. Both from the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears, some Natives fled to the deeper bayous of Louisiana. Naquin married an Indian woman, Pauline Verdin, whose family fled to the bayou. Naquin and Verdin moved to a strip of marsh that would soon be named after his father, and what we know today as Isle de Jean Charles, according to the Tribe’s website. All of their children, except one, married into Indian families and began to interweave their cultures, speaking a hybrid of French and their Native languages, some that is still used today by their Chief and older tribal members.  

By 1880, the Terrebonne Parish Census listed four families as island residents’ the male household heads were: Walker Lovell, Jean Baptise Narcisse Naquin, Antoine Livaudais Dardar and Marceline Duchils Naquin. To this day, some of the Dardars and Naquins still live on the island. 

At the island’s peak, about 300 families lived on the island. Men were fishermen, farmers and oystermen, together creating strong family ties and sense of community. 

“The women would clean the meat, that was their role,” said Chief Naquin, recalling the island from his childhood. “They’d have big garden and grow okra, cantaloupe and butter beans.” 

“The women would clean the meat, that was their role,” said Chief Naquin, recalling the island from his childhood. “They’d have big garden and grow okra, cantaloupe and butter beans.” 

According to Chief Naquin, there was so much greenery and animals on the island that they never went without. On Sundays Chief Naquin said everyone would go house-to-house after cooking, eating and just enjoying each other’s company. According to Naquin, their tribe didn’t have Native American Traditions, like sweat lodges like other tribes; theirs was more family centered. 

“We would go visit everyone every Sunday,” he said. “You’d stop for a cup of coffee and just sit there and talk. There would maybe be about 20 that would meet. The kids would wrestle, play around. Men fix houses that needed help.” 

The island was the piece that held the tribe together, and now it’s slipping through their fingers. Cookie Naquin, niece of Chief Naquin, also grew up on the island. Cookie is a jokester and loves to light-hearted sarcastic nods. What she doesn’t joke about is her home and the island. Like others who grew up, living off the land is what she remembers most vividly, and she says that oil companies and their dredging, are taking that away from her. 

“I was raised here, it means my entire livelihood,” said Naquin. “I used to go fishing, and now I can’t, the oil companies are the reason.”

Life on the island was a dream. And now, the island much like a dream is becoming a distant memory. There are few houses, and all raised at least 10 feet in the air to combat flooding. There are rusted cars and appliances sitting in fields like old statues. Right when you get to the islands, stand just a metal frame of a house that was destroyed in a past hurricane, and around it, the grass and weeds stand tall. There are no longer the gardens Naquin mentioned and there aren’t any farm animals in sight. 

 Now, there are less than 20 families on the island. Between dredging, and climate change, it has been increasingly more difficult to live on the island. Voluntarily, families have moved away, sold their homes and are awaiting their new homes promised in the resettlement agreement. 

The resettlement of the Isle de Jean Charles residents is much like entering the twilight zone for its past residents. The Louisiana Office of Community Developed spent $11.7 million on a 515-acre on an old sugarcane plantation to relocate about 80 residents from the island. A hefty price tag on such a cultureless strip. 

In the field you can hear cars going on the adjacent freeways and not the sound of birds or waves. You can see the big Chevron facility and street signs, not trees and the orange sunset against the water’s edge. The field is just a field and will never match the island’s beauty or cultural significance to the tribe. 

Things would be slightly different, according to Chief Naquin, if the tribe had money. There are 10 state-recognized tribes and only four federally recognized tribes in Louisiana. The Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Tribe is state-recognized but not federally recognized, so in that aspect they miss out on federal dollars to help their members. Chief Naquin says the tribe is missing birth certificates from some great-great family members, making it difficult to be a stand-alone tribe. 

It’s been an uphill battle for Chief Naquin. He says that because he’s chief, he takes all the heat. When he goes to state and federal meetings, not many tribal members show up. Because most tribal members work, their schedules don’t allow them to help Chief Naquin as much as he’d like.  

“I always get the blame for everything,” he said. ”I fight with the state, with the parish, and I’m always alone. People never show up.” 

He said he thinks his people have stopped trying. 

“If you send for troops out of war and only the general shows up, you get a beating,” he said. 

But Chief Naquin isn’t ready to give up yet. He said his tribe needs a community. He wants to see the “young folks” grow up the way he used to. He would like his family to get back together and the way to do that, is become federally recognized and get help. 

The Director of Office of Indian Affairs for Louisiana Pat Arnold has been researching the tribe’s resettlement and conducting property surveys of the new land. She noted that if residents signed for the total relocation, they could never return back to the island. She said that the deal between the residents and the government is “unfair.” 

“It was like giving away their rights to the property they had lived on all their lives,” said Arnold. 

In 2001, the United States Army Corps of Engineers built a 72-mile levee system called the Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Project. It was designed to provide hurricane protection to the Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes. According to Jerome Zeringue, who was the director of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District, the Morganza would only be leaving out a few people. And those people, were the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. According to the tribe, in 1998 the Army Corps of Engineers decided it was not cost-effective to include the tiny island. They decided the people living on the island were not worth the time, effort or money. 

“An argument to have built the Morganza system to include Isle de Jean Charles in the protection system based on the value of the human lives and culture on the island, but the Army Corps of Engineers must have done a cost-benefit analysis in which they found the cost of including the island was not worth the benefit,” said Director of Costal Restoration and Preservation in Terrebonne Parish Mart Black.

And that is just what the government did. They bought out the people and are forcing them to a not-built-yet community that is polar opposite to the land they call home.

Vanishing coasts

Vanishing coastlines isn’t just a problem for Isle de Jean Charles, but for the entire state of Louisiana. Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a coalition of the  Environmental Defense Fund, National Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, have been working to rebuild costal Louisiana. According to the coalition, since the 1930’s, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles, an area almost the size of Delaware. 

“Climate change has been going on for a long time,” said Director of Costal Restoration and Preservation in Terrebonne Parish Mart Black. “It’s just that we have gotten to point where we can effectively measure it.”

Scientists have measured it, but locals across Louisiana say they’ve seen it. Jackie Usaie, Louisiana native and mother of a charter fisherman, goes out with her son fishing occasionally. From growing up in Louisiana to now, she said she’s seen the change. Sitting at a table with her husband in Bayou Cane Seafood, local restaurant in Houma, she recalled Louisiana’s landscape and seafood culture. 

While finishing up her food Jackie said, “There’s nowhere else in the world where you can’t find food in a ditch.”  

And looking at the mound of crawfish carcasses on top of the table, she was correct. She emphasized that she and her husband do not believe in climate change, saying the weather has always been the same, however, she does see a difference when out fishing. 

“There’s a big difference in the coastline, you see a lot more water,” she said. 

Her husband also has seen a change in the amount of water on the coast, but attributes its rise to the oil companies, not climate change. 

“There’s no change in the level of the sea because of climate change, it’s from the buffering and fracking and erosion,” Reggie Redmond Sr. said. 

The coastline aren’t the only places disappearing. Louisiana’s swamps and marshes are also being affected. Richard Brunet, born and raised in the bayou of Houma Louisiana calls himself, a “coonass.” The term, to some, is a controversial ethnic slur for the word ‘Cajun,’ to others, it’s a badge of pride that showcases southern Louisiana heritage. For Brunet, it’s the latter. 

“It’s actually [means] the people from the bayou who are used to living off land and water,” said Brunet. 

Brunet is a Cajun if there ever was one. He has a molasses accent that pours through his words with a southern drag. He fishes for crawfish, hunts, and on the occasion, wrestles alligators. Brunet said he and his teenage boys go fishing and looking deep in the swamps for “whatever comes out.” To him, swamp culture is everything and he says it has changed since he was a little boy. He said some of his favorite spots are so high with water that he can’t camp there anymore and that the swamps are getting smaller.

“It’s slowly eroding, the Mississippi river and all the water coming from up north from the snow, isn’t helping.”

After levees were placed on the Mississippi in Louisiana with the intention to stop excess water from hurricanes, an unintentional affect has become a result. Since water is being blocked, so is the sediment it would normally bring along with it. Consequently, land loss from erosion isn’t being replaced with new sediment and fresh water from the river isn’t slowing down the erosion from the saltwater. These two factors are some of Isle de Jean Charles’ biggest issues. 

Isle de Jean Charles is experiencing a lot. High tides are causing flooding, fracking and dredging of nearby canals are possibly causing land loss, the levee on the Mississippi river is causing land loss due to its inability to replace settlement. The sinking of the island (or rising of the water, or both) isn’t a one solution fix; it may not be fixable at all. 

“Right now, it’s too late to save the island. It’s too little, too late,” said Rita Falgout, cousin of Chief Naquin. 

Falgout is 83 years old. In 2018 she made the hard decision to leave her house on the island behind and accept the resettlement proposal in the new area. Because no houses have been built yet, she’s had to move three times since then. 

Falgout said they had to move in fear she and her husband would not be able to leave in case of emergencies. Island Rd., the only way to and off of the island floods frequently. And with more frequent flooding, it’s been increasingly difficult to navigate to and from the island. 

“Too much water,” she said. “My husband was sick, and we didn’t have transportation and I was worried about him, something happening, him getting worse or something and we’d have an emergency. And I said, ‘What do we want to do here? What if the road is flooded?’ I said, ‘He’s not going to ride in a helicopter.’”

Unfortunately, Falgout’s husband passed away before he could see their new home. Now, still waiting on its construction, Falgout still hopes to see her family in friends in their new community.

From coastal areas, to swamps and to the Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana’s land has been changing for some time now. People across the state are seeing the change and lives are being affected. Land is diminishing and if not dealt with quickly and effectively, Isle de Jean Charles won’t be the only part of Louisiana to disappear. 

New Orleans

New Orleans is completely different than the rest of the state. Rural meets urban, Cajun meet Creole and jazz, food and culture mix into a big pot of gumbo, giving you a taste of everything southern. But buried in the muffles of trumpets, big bands and parades is a place that has also been forgotten and ignored by Louisiana’s government. 

Much like an island of its own, the Lower Ninth Ward, the hardest area hit by Hurricane Katrina, also a predominately black neighborhood, has still yet to fully recover. The Ninth Ward, 15 years after Katrina, still has unoccupied, decaying houses. Many are remnants of destroyed houses or boarded up with “no trespassing” signs. There are many overgrown lots where houses once stood with grass and weeds that are at least mid-calf height. One person stated that they mow the grass in the open field across the street to prevent people from sneaking through it. 

Victims of crime, poverty and racial disparity, it seems that Louisiana has turned a blind eye to people of the Ninth Ward. According to the Data Center, almost 25% of the percent of total households reported less than $10,000 or less from 2014-2018 and the average household income to be a little over $33,000. The people of the Ninth Ward are still struggling with Katrina’s wrath and their poverty-stricken area hasn’t gotten much help since then. 

Nevil Brown, a Lower Ninth Ward resident, was one of the lucky ones when Katrina hit. He had left two days prior to Missouri and stayed during the storm. Brown wasn’t able to get back to the area for another 2-3 months before he was able to return. After getting back, he said nearly everything had been destroyed. 

He also said that the government didn’t really provide any help after the hurricane. The community is still waiting for something from them.

“[It’s] really hurtful,” said Brown. “The government never gave me nothing.”

Lower Ninth Ward Firefighter Jimmie Harris was fortunate to have had flood insurance and received a little help. Harris’ house flooded with about 8ft of water and he and his family had to evacuate. 

After returning, he said there was debris and about three inches of mud in the streets. 

“It had this raw, sewer-like smell,” he said. “It was a mess.”

When the water resided and he returned home, he said everything had floated towards his front door. He said it took him three years to rebuild. 

“The community tried to help each other, but everybody needed help,” said Harris. ‘It was kind of everybody on their own—it took longer for us to get back up on our feet.”

And some residents are still fighting to get back on their feet. Jerry Gibson has lived in New Orleans for over 60 years and was home when the water started to rush in. Gibson said he was asleep when water poured into his bedroom. In an instant, his whole house was flooded; he thought quick and escaped out of the kitchen window to the roof of the house. 

The water was high, and the current carried him away in an instant. Luckily, there was a tall palm tree down the block he clung on to. He said the storm ravaged, he saw neighbors drowning, screaming for help but he couldn’t do anything but hold on. 

“It was them, or me,” Gibson said. “I was holding on to the tree while debris was hitting me.”

As quick as the storm arrived, it had left. The furious wind stopped and so did the waves. The bodies of people and animals, debris from houses, all stood still. 

“And then the water got calm; the water looked like glass,” he said. “I didn’t see a cat, dog, nothing. It was like a desert ‘round here; it was like I was the only one here.” 

Gibson said he knows how to survive. He clung to the tree for about 45 minutes before a crew showed up with a boat and helped him. When he was able to come back to his house, he said only the toilet was left sitting on a slab of concrete, nothing else. 

Now, 15 years later, Gibson is still working on his house. When we visited him, he, his brother and a friend were out with plywood and a buzz saw, fixing up the foundation of his house. 

Both the residents of Isle de Jean Charles and the Lower Ninth Ward feel abandoned by their government, both state and federal. Each group felt that only the minimum was done to help their plights, and some from both groups hinted at predetermined malice. Either intentional or not, both of these islands are sinking and eroding away both physically and figuratively.

Resilience

Resiliency has been humanity’s crest and for the people of Louisiana, it perfectly describes their plights. For the residents Isle de Jean Charles, although some have moved away and agreed to settle elsewhere, some residents have refused. 

Johnny Tamplet, not part of the tribe but a resident on Isle de Jean Charles has no interest in moving whatsoever. His, Cookie Naquin, and a couple other island residents have “House Not For Sale,” signs on their property. For Tamplet, it isn’t about his ancestry running deep on the island that makes him want to stay, it’s the culture and pride of being there. 

Tamplet is also opposed to moving for financial reasons. He said he makes less than $13,000 a year. He doesn’t pay a mortgage or property taxes on his home. With the offer of a new home off the island, comes expenses Tamplet isn’t financially ready to pay. 

Property tax, house insurance and flood insurance are just some of the bills he would have to budget in if he were to take a resettlement home. And for him, he says “no.” Tamplet isn’t too keen in giving the government his money and he says what he has right now is his and wants to keep it that way. 

Tamplet has been very vocal of his opinion, making it known he has no plans to surrender. 

“I bought this house 11 years ago in October,” said Tamplet. “And I tell people, I didn’t buy it to live here, I bought it because this is where I wanna’ die.”

The tribe’s resilience rests in the hands of Chief Naquin. And if he can get his tribe federally recognized, he might be able to save the island. If the tribe attains federal recognition, by law, they would be eligible for certain benefits and protections from the federal government. The federal government not only is to provide benefits, financial and others, but to also ensure bargaining power with the Corps of Engineers stating that the island is essential to their culture and heritage. 

The people of the Lower Ninth Ward are also soldiers, in surviving a horrific natural disaster and still returning home, trying to rebuild their lives. Like Jerry Gibson, in some way all the resident in Louisiana are clinging to palm trees of their own, hoping for the better and waiting for the storm to pass. 

From Bourbon St., to Island Rd., people are making their way through trial and tribulations across Louisiana. With little help, they’ve had to tough it out by themselves and consistently do their best. 

Lower Ninth Ward resident Keith Bernard encourages the people of Louisiana not to wait for help, but to go out and seek it. Through all hard work, comes results he said. 

“Don’t be a dreamer, fulfill the damn dream.” 

The post Into the Bayou appeared first on Rising Waters.

“What if I said you can’t record me?”

Clearly, Cookie had some experience with journalists coming to her house and asking about the situation on the island.

While the words coming out of her mouth seemed unfriendly, the tone in which they were said combined with her sweet southern bayou accent and glowing smile made it okay. Cookie probably could’ve yelled at us to leave while brandishing a shotgun and nobody would’ve felt wronged in our group. Scared perhaps, because Cookie definitely seems like someone who’s been around the block, or island rather, a few times, but she has every right to ward curious eyes away from her home.

Cookie said she and other homeowners on the island are worried about what will happen once all of her neighbors are gone from the island. She, and many other natives of the area, think the government and local businesses will turn the island and surrounding waters into a sporting resort area for fishing and hunting. Some of the people who live on the island still maintain their residence simply to prevent such a change from happening.

The United States has a history of taking desirable lands from American Indians and depleting the game which once made the land so desirable in the first place to the point of near extinction in the Great Plains. The communities on the Bakken oil formation ravished by the oil industry and the massacre sites which forever taint the Missouri river with blood are some of the scars from the history of this country.

Her family, the Naquin family, traces its roots on the island all the way back to the very first family that settled the island in the early 1800s. The Naquin name has been synonymous with the Isle de Jean Charles since people first started living there. In fact, before there were Naquins living on the Isle, there was only wildlife there.

The original Naquin family who first lived on the island was comprised of a Frenchman named Jean Marie Naquin and his American Indian wife, Pauline Verdin. Jean Marie’s family disowned him for marrying an American Indian. This island is where they survived the atrocities of Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act of 1830.

She is staying because she says living on the island means her livelihood. Cookie grew up on the island through all of the bad times and the good. For her it seems, the good times outweigh all the times the island road flooded and all the hurricanes destroyed dozens of her neighbor’s homes.

Her resilience is emblematic of her entire community’s struggle to gain equality and bring aid to their island. Through the years the Isle de Jean Charles people have struggled with education inequality, racial inequality and financial inequality because their ancestors decided to settle on an island that was remote from other settlements.

Even through the flooding, Cookie remains resilient. When the only road leading from the mainland to the island floods with up to two feet of water, Cookie drives her Dodge Ram along the roughly 2.5 mile road to transport people and supplies. Before she had the Ram, she drove a Chevrolet S10.

Cookie might be the first American Indian lesbian to successfully sail a Chevrolet S10 and Dodge Ram 1500 in open water. She has fearlessly and successfully made this voyage dozens of times.

Cookie attributes much of the land loss on the island to dredging of canals in the area which allows larger ships to pass through. This enlargement of the canals was done because the area is host to a large amount of marine traffic, which significantly contributes to their economy. Much of that marine traffic includes oil rigs and other oil industry vessels.

While Cookie recognizes the oil industry has contributed to coastline loss on her home island, she works for a transportation company serving that very same oil industry. Like many of her peers, she has to work a job to make money so she can pay for living expenses and many of the jobs available in the area are involved in the oil industry.

“It’s a job, I’m going to live with it,” she said.

Cookie doesn’t think the community will ever be the same without the island their community traces its past to beneath their feet. It seemed as though she felt physical pain when describing life without the island.

“It’s like somebody pulling your heart out.”

The post Cookie Naquin’s Heart is Being Ripped from her Chest as the Isle de Jean Charles Sinks appeared first on Rising Waters.

In 2016, a resettlement plan had emerged to help relocate the natives of the Isle De Jean Charles. A 515-acre piece of land was bought to be the new home for the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe members of the Isle. 

Chief Albert Naquin, a longtime resident of the isle and chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe, said that the construction of the new community was supposed to begin in March of this year. 

“It was four years in January, and they’re still working on it,” said Chief Naquin. 

The Isle could have avoided the major problems it has today if it was included in the Morganza Spillway. The Morganza is a flood control structure in the state of Louisiana that stretches along the lower Mississippi River.

Mart Black, the director of Coastal Restoration and Preservation in Terrebonne Parish, believes that if the isle would have been included in the plan, it would have been saved. The decision to exclude the isle from the plan was made back in 1996. According to Black, Louisiana has had its issues with climate change since the 1930’s. Black believes that both climate change and the geology of the isle are contributory factors to issues that it faces today. Black stated that the core of engineers decided from a cost benefit stand point, it didn’t make sense to include the Isle De Jean Charles in the Morganza.

“The big issue is that we are relocating these people, and we are uprooting their culture and trying to establish it at another site that has no cultural meaning,” said Black.

The resettlement plan was funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.  The competition is called the National Disaster Resilience Competition. According to the HUD, HUD had awarded the state of Louisiana $92 million. The funds were split between the LA SAFE Fund and the Isle De Jean Charles, the tribe received $48 million for the resettlement. 

According to the Isle De Jean Charles Resettlement plan, the resettlement process was turned into four phases. The first phase consisted of data gathering and engagement with the community. The goal of this phase was to engage with isle residents and take note of their priorities. In this phase the resettlement team learned that the isle residents wanted privacy, seclusion, access to water, safety, flood protection, continued access to the island and maintaining and strengthening cultural identity. The team focused on looking into the values of each individual to help create a well-represented new community.

The second phase was site selection, acquisition, and master planning. The second phase consisted of multiple meetings with the tribe members of the isle to find the right location for them. Between December of 2016 through June 2017, the state conducted site evaluations and allowed the Isle residents to visit sites. From July 2017 to December 2017, the resettlement team chose a consultant team to begin developing the master plan and discussed the pros and cons of the new location. Between January 2018 to September 2018, a steering committee held two design workshops for the planning of the new community. In March of 2018, the state placed a purchase option on the property that was preferred by the isle residents. In December of 2018, the state purchased the property. The second phase was the longest lasting phase spanning over three years of planning and designing. 

The third phase would consist of development and construction. The third phase would be the execution phase, where it focuses on implementing the master plan created in the second phase. It will consist of reviewing the environment, finalizing site design work, acquiring permits, laying infrastructure, constructing housing, initiating business development activities, launching workforce training programs, and helping residents move in. Currently, the resettlement process is in the third phase, but no construction has been started yet.

The fourth phase would consist of living in the new community. It will help alleviate the concerns of some of the isle residents who feel like the transition will be too great. This phase will have the resettlement team work with the community to ensure that there are new opportunities, new connections and a new peace and security to be found.

The location of the new property is 40 miles north of the Isle De Jean Charles near Schriever in Terrebonne Parish. Although, construction has yet to begin for the new piece of land, Chief Naquin was satisfied with the $11 million purchase. 

“It was a good piece of land, it was high in elevation,” said Chief Naquin. “It was the land we wanted.”

The few tribe members that remain on the isle are very reluctant to leave and plan to stay for the foreseeable future. Whether the isle residents believe in climate change or not, the consensus was that their land will no longer exist within the next 40 years. 

The post America’s ‘First Climate Refugees’ Resettling Due to Years of Land Loss​ appeared first on Rising Waters.

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“We want to be able to support kids that want to go into the trade,” said Sydney Doyle, the group leader at the current site.

In 2005, New Orleans experienced a hurricane known as Katrina. It has been 15 years since the horrific storm, and the lower 9^th ward is reminded every day. In the lower 9^th ward, there are neighborhoods that are overrun with weeds, graffiti covered buildings, and soulless houses. This community has become a desert for grocery stores, businesses, hospitals, and schools.

“When people were bused out of the city a lot of people didn’t have the money to get back or didn’t have the money to fix their home, so they moved somewhere else.” said Doyle.

This storm was an influential moment for the “haves and the have nots.” Thousands of people were able to evacuate and thousands of families that weren’t able to evacuate, most of who were low-income, or disabled. A lot of the people that couldn’t evacuate died in their homes, and those people that survived had to bear ongoing struggles to survive, and financial hurdles rebuild their homes.

“There so many abandoned lots and homes … the city wants to get people living in them,” said Doyle.

There were a couple incentives implemented to redevelop the 9^th ward, but most of those incentives lacked character and culture. unCommon Construction provides high school students paid apprentices, so they are equipped with soft and hard skills once they graduate.

“Most of what we focus on is soft skill development, so yeah they are construction and there is hard skills but what really focus on is time management and professional attitude,” said Doyle.

Students from varying New Orleans high schools who are at least 16 are encouraged to apply. Local high school students that are interested don’t need previous construction experience and must be able to commit 10 hours a week.

“We partner with a lot of different construction companies … and we try to have a diverse cohort each semester.” said Doyle.

Each cohort of students builds one house from start to finish every semester. The students earn high school internship credit, hourly pay, work experience, and a scholarship once they graduate. 

“The money from that sell is what pays our kids paychecks, and we give them equity awards, so we match 50 cents to every dollar they make every semester that goes into a scholarship they get when they graduate…. and the next student group,” said Doyle.

The houses they build are sold in an open market and they are typically priced below the medium range in the neighborhood. This is Sydney’s first time working on a home in the lower 9^th ward, she also assisted in building homes in St. Rock neighborhood. If you are interested in learning more about unCommon Construction click here https://uncommonconstruction.org/.

“This is only our second affordable home that we’ve done, with our program we can’t afford to build affordable homes often which is why it’s exciting we get to do this one,” said Doyle. 

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They are all typically one-story homes that get raised many feet above the ground. A usual basement turns into open air and elevators are sometimes attached for transportation of items.

The stilt homes serve a big purpose in coastal states like Louisiana: safety from expected coastal flooding, especially during hurricane season.

Cookie Naquin is a resident on the sinking island of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana. She lives in her one-story stilt home with her partner and grandchildren. It’s like any other American home – besides the fact it’s raised 13 feet above the island ground.

Cookie has lived on the island for over 50 years and home she resides in now was originally her parents’ home. It’s one of the houses on the island that started off on the ground, then was built up. A lot of homes in the area were raised in 2005, according to Naquin.

“Homes here started on the ground,” said Cookie. “But many had to be raised after Hurricane Rita.”

But her home wasn’t stilted until 2009 when her family got a loan from The Road Home, a federal program set up to help Louisiana residents after the damage done by Hurricane Katrina and Rita. The program has completed all rebuilding initiatives and is closed, according to the organization’s website.

The home was lifted off the ground and raised 13 feet, but with each storm the waters keep getting higher and higher, according to Cookie.

Living just next door to Cookie is her relative Bert Naquin. The island is home to a very knitted tribe making everyone family at the end of the day. While appearing to be spaced out, they all live pretty close to one another, making a wall of high homes.

Bert and her family have lived on the island for pretty much her whole life. She’s one of five siblings and also still resides in her family home.

Their home was built by Habitat for Humanity after the irreversible damage from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.

Bert’s home sits a whopping 15 feet in the air. The porch steps seem endless and if one gust of wind comes back, you can feel the whole thing shake and swing.

The height gives a good view, though, and from the porch you can see for miles across the island. A lot is now mostly water, but next to Bert’s home sits a forest. That used to be regular homes, according to Bert.

“My family used to live there,” said Bert, pointing to the overgrown patch of land next door. “Used to be all up and down the street.”

Frequent storms and rising waters have made elevated houses a real necessity on the coast.

Some homes are automatically elevated upon construction, as seen in Bert’s case, but many require elevation overtime to accommodate the weather.

Prices for raising a home range. The most basic costs can be anywhere from $11,000 to $15,500, according to home elevation business A-Home Team Elevation & Construction’s website.

Other factors can come into play with price including house size, permits, and existing condition. With these factors and many others figured in, the price range can jump to around $30,000 and $100,000.

How high homeowners actually want to go with their home is another considerable factor. Houses are typically elevated based on the owner’s desired or required Flood Protection Elevation (FPE), according to an elevation guide by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

A home’s FPE should be at least a foot higher than the Base Flood Elevation (BFE), FEMA recommends. This can result in a home elevation being three or four feet, which does not alter too much of the outside, says FEMA, but many direct coastal homes have had to result to much higher plans.

Hurricane Rita alone brought flooding of up to an estimated 15 feet, according to FEMA, which was plenty to lead Cookie and her family to raise their home. More recently, in 2019, Hurricane Barry flooded parts of Louisiana, including Isle de Jean Charles, with waters as high as seven feet, according to Cookie.

Higher elevations can serve some benefits outside of flooding protections. There is some potential to give homes new additions.

Roubion Shoring & Construction, an elevation and construction company located around Louisiana, recommends the addition for an underground garage if raising a home over eight feet, according to their website. They even have an option for a “basement.” They use special steel beams to cover the weight, according to the company.

Mainly, though, these home elevations can save personal belongings and, potentially, lives.

“The sky is the limit,” reads the Roubion Shoring & Construction website and that is all too true for these number of coastal homes battling the onslaught that comes with storm after storm, flooding after flooding.

The post ‘The Sky is the Limit’: Stilted Homes and Living Above the Floods appeared first on Rising Waters.

Mr. Brown is not just talking about the debris-filled streets or the water-stained homes, but the loss of community, family and friends that the lower 9^th ward used to have.

“You know, you lost family members in the flood, and people went to different places, we lost a lot,” says Brown.

Listen to the full story below:

The post A Loss of Community 15 Years After Hurricane Katrina appeared first on Rising Waters.

On Jan. 15, The Alaskan Institute for Justice submitted “Rights of Indigenous People in Addressing Climate-Forced Displacement” on behalf of the Native Alaskan Village of Kivalina and multiple Louisiana tribes, including the Pointe-Au-Chien Indian Tribe, the Grand Bayou Village of the Arakapa-Ishak Chawasha Tribe, and the Grand Caillou/Dulac and Isle de Jean Charles Bands of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians.

“Despite their geographic differences, the Tribes in Louisiana and Alaska are facing similar human rights violations as a consequence of the US government’s failure to protect, promote and fulfill each Tribe’s right to self-determination to protect Tribal members from climate impacts,” states the complaint. “These rights include the rights to life, health, housing, water, sanitation, a healthy environment and food, among others.”

Each tribe faces similar issues albeit under different circumstances and levels of severity. Whether its rising sea levels, catastrophic storms or unchecked extraction of oil and gas, each tribe is being forcibly displaced from their ancestral homes, according to the complaint. In the case of the Louisiana tribes, their lack of federal recognition hinders the tribes’ ability to get the help they need from the federal government.

Scott Hemmerling, director of Human Dimensions at the Water Institute of the Gulf, said that a good example of how Louisiana tribes suffer from non-federal recognition is the case of the Isle de Jean Charles relocation effort in collaboration with the state of Louisiana. The project was originally to ensure the culture and “life-ways” of the community.

“How do you just move a culture?” Hemmerling said.

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the state of Louisiana a grant that included $48 million to fund the Isle de Jean Charles Tribal Resettlement plan. But because of the federal nature of the grant, the State of Louisiana asserted that “tribal affiliation” would not be a part of the resettlement plan. Trust was quickly lost between the Isle de Jean Charles tribe and the state when the tribe realized that they had no say in the plan.

“In our opinion, the State of Louisiana has managed to ruin their chance to be leaders of our country and world by ignorance and ‘good ‘ole Louisiana politics,’” wrote Chief Albert Naquin in a letter.

The complaint states that while relocation efforts between Louisiana tribes and the state government betray the tribes’ right to self-determination, the fact that little to nothing is done to prevent their land from disappearing highlights a grim truth.

“It’s a way for communities to see that the state can’t protect them,” said Hemmerling.

Similar Problems on the Other Side of the Continent

Although the Alaskan Native Village of Kivalina is federally recognized unlike the other tribes represented in the complaint, the approximately 400 Inupiaq people living in the village know that their home will inevitably be gone.

The village is located on a barrier reef island on the northeastern coast of Alaska. According to the UN complaint, no roads lead to or from the community, which is only accessible by small planes or boats and is approximately 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle and 1,000 miles northwest of Anchorage, Alaska.

According to a 2003 National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration study, Kivalina Island shrunk from 55 acres in 1953 to 27 acres of livable space. The UN complaint states that coastal erosion from severe storms and rising sea levels from the ever-shrinking Arctic Circle threaten the existence of the island and that by 2025, it will be inhabitable.

Subsistence hunting and gathering is the main source of food in Kivalina, according to the UN complaint. But the changing environment is now too unstable to reliably provide sources of food.

“We have not caught the bearded seal for 2 years, due to lack of solid ice formation,” said Kivalina’s Tribal Administrator Millie Hawley in a statement. “All the marine mammals we gather to feed our families for the winter are lacking and our childbearing women suffer the most due to low iron in their blood.”

Now Kivalina relies on western food delivered by plane, making the cost of living exponentially higher for families. At the same time, marine animals like salmon have been washing up dead along the Alaskan coast from rising sea temperatures, according to the UN complaint.

Like the Isle de Jean Charles tribe, the Native Village of Kivalina’s attempts and resettlement have run into problems with government bureaucracy and inaction. The complaint states that as early as 1998, relocation sites chosen by Kivalina residents were rejected by the U.S. Corps of Engineers after deciding that it would not be cost-effective to shore up the sites against flooding from permafrost melt.

A protective rock barrier and funding for an evacuation road are the only solutions that Kivalina has received from their state and federal government, but these are less than ideal, short-term solutions that leave the community with a sense of abandonment and hopelessness, according to the complaint.

“A lack of dedicated federal and state funding has meant that the relocation process moves too slowly for Kivalina’s residents whose lives are in danger every time a storm inundates the community,” states the complaint.

The post The UN Needs to Address Indigenous People Facing Climate Displacement: Complaint appeared first on Rising Waters.

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Fifteen years post-Hurricane Katrina, the refuge has been conducting restoration and breakwater projects like the annual Christmas tree drop to rebuild the refuge and protect against shoreline erosion. 

“We’re floating,” said Shelley Stiaes, refuge manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “You don’t feel it, but we are.” She described how Louisiana’s loose sediment landscape has been sinking into the Gulf Coast, making the area increasingly vulnerable to coastal erosion. “That’s another problem: subsidence in New Orleans. When you get these storms or heavy rains, everything will flood.” 

Natural protection features like barrier islands and beach ridges obscure the interior wetlands—and the city—from the waves, wind and storm surges that beat down upon the coastline. Levees were built in addition to keep the water out but consequently created what Stiaes calls a “bowl,” with New Orleans resting in the basin about six-feet-below sea level. 

Bayou Sauvage has less than 5% of natural levees with enough elevation or drainage to support the ecosystem. With the help of The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the refuge built a multi-million-dollar levee system around the conservatory. Smaller levees were built inside the refuge, which created miniature bowls, so pumping systems were installed to pipe the water that gets trapped back out. 

After Hurricane Katrina, 80% of the refuge’s forest was toppled by wind or oversaturated by saltwater that flooded in with the storm surge. 

“This used to be a closed canopy,” said Stiaes gesturing to the absent forest awning over the Ridge Trail boardwalk. In 2008, the refuge began reforestation initiatives to restore vegetative growth by planting trees that support native and migrating wildlife. The refuge began partnering with scientists to monitor vegetation growth and worked with at-risk youth, who got experience in the environment repairing boardwalks, planting native flora and removing invasive growth. 

“Some of the largest cities, especially New Orleans, collect Christmas trees,” said Brian Pember, assistant refuge manager at the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge outside of Houma, Louisiana. “Bayou Sauvage got hammered during Katrina, so they’re still trying to restore it. That’s a really effective way to help protect the shoreline.” 

Since much of the refuge’s marshland was broken apart by Katrina, Bayou Sauvage asked New Orleans’s residents to donate their bare post-season Christmas trees to repair flood barriers within the conservatory. The annual project began before Katrina, though it was all done manually by the refuge workers. After Katrina, it developed into a large-scale collaboration between the City of New Orleans and its citizens, the Department of Sanitation and the Louisiana Army National Guard among others. 

Upcycled Christmas trees are bundled into groups of 50, strapped into a harness and airlifted three-at-a-time into the marsh via helicopters. The exercise is useful training for the Louisiana Army National Guard with the objective of laying a straight line of trees across the marsh from one poll to another. Then on an airboat, refuge workers and volunteers untie and retrieve the harnesses from the crib. 

The crib of recycled Christmas trees reconnects islands and marshland within the refuge and acts as a wave-break by obstructing the shoreline from wave erosion. The dulled water motion allows for new vegetative growth and traps silt, which helps strengthen the shoreline.

In 2019, more than 9,000 trees were estimated to have been lowered into the refuge, creating a wave-break visible from Google Earth.  

“By the time the Christmas trees have rotted, sediment has dropped out some of the emerging vegetation, like bulrushes, which grow out and protect the shoreline,” said Pember.

Similar cribs have been built at the Mandalay National Wildlife Refuge, which consists of more than 4,000 acres of freshwater marsh and is intersected by the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. Being a wetland conservatory, the refuge is made up of swamp and marshland that can only be accessed by boat.

Busted up concrete piled along the shoreline helps prevent the marshland from eroding into the waterway. Repurposed Christmas trees like those at Bayou Sauvage were collected behind a wooden crib, providing a healthy barrier for the flotant marsh and loose mats of vegetation that shift in the wind and water. Often, regrowth can be seen inside the Christmas tree cribs.

“On the calm side, we get more vegetation. Birds pass by and drop seeds—I’ve seen stuff growing out of the tree.” said Stiaes. “It’s a very beneficial project. It involves the citizens of New Orleans—they get to give back.”

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