Sayfu, good buddy, this Louisiana Delta restoration plan has little or nothing to do with the oil spill. The plan is to address land loss from the leveeing and dredging of the Mississippi- we have the fastest disappearing landmass on the planet there right now, and those losses are right up against the nation's largest energy infrastructure ports (the home port of the LOOP), right up against one of our major cities, and that city supports two ports that carry $60 billion in cargo each year, from 3000 miles of America's heartland farms and factories. A lot of people consider this land loss here the major economic issue of our time, given all that is at stake.

This is not about the spill, although some of the land building projects here might be funded by some of the fines that result from the spill.

Sadly, this area is disappearing faster than most sportsmen are aware. Last spring I went to one of my favorite spots, a deep hole at the tip of an island that has a large volume of water passing through when the tide is falling. Unfortunately, the island has disappeared. Several years ago I tried to return to the first barrier island my father took me to when I was nine. To this day, that trip produced the biggest speckled trout I've ever seen, and it's still hanging on the wall. This island (which was about a half a mile long at the time) has completely disappeared. You don't even have to worry about running aground as you drive over it anymore. I believe the barrier islands appear and disappear naturally. Actually, all of the barrier islands are slowly moving west. However, the man made channels are prohibiting them from moving around naturally. I believe the work done by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid 1900's is primarily to blame for the loss of the wetlands and the islands. They finally dammed off the MR. GO a few years ago, but the damage has already been done. Also, I think another reason why the marshes are disapearing is from the constant boat wake of commercial fishermen and ,unfortunately, recreational fisherman like myself. The marshes are naturally very calm water, and it takes quite a thunderstorm to produce big waves. But now the banks are pounded by boat wakes every day. Also, since the lower MS River was damned off and the marshes no longer recieve freshwater, oyster fisherman have began farming oysters in the area that used to flood every year nutrient rich freshwater that would rebuild the marshes. This hampers reconstruction efforts because they lobby to prevent the flooding of marshes with fresh water because it will affect their oyster farms (fresh water can kill oysters.) Nevermind that oyster's aren't supposed to grow in that area naturally. Also, as I'm sure many of you are aware, many plant species in the marsh require some freshwater every year to stay alive. When the river was dammed off, these plants no longer got the needed freshwater so much of the plant life died rather quickly, enabling the hurricanes and waves to wash the marshes away much faster. If you ever venture to Venice, the marshes are healthier than other parts of the Louisiana marsh, because the freshwater Venice still recieves enables all of the native vegetation to thrive.

Sorry for the ranting, this is a touchy subject for me that is prone to make me do that.

Couldn't have been that disastrous. Much of it recovered very quick, and the commercial, and sporting fishing is doing quite well. And Obama never even showed up down there for over a month! Couldn't have been that disastrous.