nonfiction
Notes from the Nation's Landfill
Mosquito control planes that sound like giant sci-fi insects buzz my
house late at night, trucks spray nightly doses of pesticides into my
yard, and my mailbox contains urgent messages from the local Mosquito
Abatement District. I get on the Interstate to drive to work, and in the
high weeds, I see prison highway workers who have jungle accessories,
complete with helmets and netting, attached to their orange jumpsuits.
I live in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, ground zero for the West Nile
virus.
Though Baton Rouge has attracted most of the heavy news media (probably
because they also have a serial killer), most of the known cases of West
Nile are within a few miles of our house.
Now, part of our daily routine is changing the bird bath water and patrolling
the tiny mosquito wading pools formed in the folds of overturned magnolia
leaves. The rains come relentlessly, and with them, an unbearable humidity.
We cover our arms with deet and our faces with towels soaked in iced Florida
water. A few days ago, lightening hit our air conditioning unit, frying
the compressor.
I put on the TV, and we are the nation's top story, over and over again. "Have the people in Louisiana started to panic?" the anchorwoman asks, revealing understandable ignorance. People in Louisiana do not panic; we wouldn't know how to. We have seen it all— hurricanes, floods, sinking neighborhoods —and our instinctive response to any crisis is to keep doing whatever it was we were already doing. Which, to be candid, usually involves eating and drinking. There are shrimp to be boiled and beer to be drunk, and killer mosquitoes are not likely to present a major obstacle to performing these Louisiana rituals.
I am quite certain I had the West Nile virus earlier this summer. In the midst of the brutal July heat, I suddenly had intense flu symptoms, body aches and a stiff neck. I was sick for over two weeks, and stayed in a weakened condition for almost a month. There are probably hundreds of us who have endured undiagnosed West Nile, but, as usual, no one is paying any attention to the obvious.
Now we have the national news media swarming here, and it would be nice if some attention were paid to the other environmental crises in Louisiana. Like the fact that the state is disappearing at an alarming rate. Every year, 25 square miles of our coastline slip away. I live in the southern part of the state—not far enough down to be nervous, but who knows what the future will bring? If the coastal communities disappear, my neighborhood could easily slide off the map and quietly drift into Mississippi one night while I am sleeping.
Coastal erosion is a major threat to hurricane protection, wildlife habitat, and the nation's fishing industry. It is also a threat to the almost mystical beauty of the swamps. Politically driven attempts to fix the problem have been less than successful, and there are only so many Christmas trees that we can haul down to the marsh in the hope of re-building it.
Then there is Cancer Alley. There are around a hundred chemical plants
along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and there
is also a very high incidence of rare cancers and respiratory complaints
among the residents, particularly the children. Waste-processing companies
have an easy time of it in the Alley because Louisiana's environmental
laws are so lax, and the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic's efforts to
advocate for the residents were stymied by the Governor, who went to court
to shut down the clinic's activities.
How about the Dead Zone? Every summer, a wall of poison water moves through
the Gulf of Mexico, killing all life in its wake. As I write this, the
zone has reached the size of Massachusetts, and is getting larger all
the time. There are a few factors causing this phenomenon, but the main
one is the fertilizer that comes to us downriver from farms in the Midwest.
The nitrogen accumulates and suffocates plants and sea creatures who cannot
escape. And though there is a lot of talk about what the growers in Nebraska
and Kansas need to do to help us out down here, no one ever mentions the
obvious solution: for the farmers to change to organic fertilizers. Organic
fertilizers release nutrients as needed, so there is no run-off that ends
up in the groundwater and—eventually—Louisiana. There would
also be the advantages of healthier crops and a cleaner environment, but
these don't appear to have much attraction.
There was even a time, several years ago, when some states in the northern part of the country skipped the gradual process of sending us garbage through run-off and groundwater: They shipped it directly to us. Rather than building more landfills or waste-processing plants, these states just packed their garbage onto barges and sent it down the river, where it ended up in—you guessed it—Louisiana.
Some of our state's environmental problems take on exotic proportions, such as the dreaded Formosa termite. During the last decade, the devastation done by these insects has cost the state more than the damage done by hurricanes, tornadoes and floods combined. They eat walls, floors, bridges, telephone lines, and historic structures, and there is no fool-proof way to get rid of them. During swarming season—April through July—vulnerable Louisiana residents sit in their houses with all of their lights out, except maybe for their television or computer screens. This doesn't keep the termites from eating their houses, but it does keep them from flying around their heads in groups of a thousand or more.
There's also the on-going battle to keep the water hyacinths from destroying the ecosystem. The hyacinths, introduced to Louisiana toward the end of the 19th Century, must be kept under constant control or they take over all light under the surface of bayous and inlets, choking off the food supplies of wildlife. Early attempts at control included setting fires and setting off explosions of dynamite, none of which did anything but make the flowers grow faster and bigger. Modern controls work much better, but they are expensive.
In recent years, we have added some new features to our list of environmental problems. The giant Australian jellyfish, the zebra mussel, and a fern called Salvinia molesta have arrived to wreak havoc on our already ravished waterways. And we have been repeatedly warned that our hurricane protection system is dangerously inadequate to protect us from a variety of impending storm scenarios.
So don't believe for a moment that we are part of any dramatic frenzy over the West Nile virus. Compared with tons of toxic waste, hundreds of dead fish, increasing childhood cancer, and an estimated twenty-foot wall of floodwater, the mosquitoes don't seem so threatening. Not yet, anyway. And by the time they present a monumental threat, we'll all be in Arkansas.
websites: www.princesscafe.com, www.dedspace.blogspot.com
