Jonathan Phillips says he thinks about Louisiana’s disappearing coastline every day.
As a commercial fisherman and member of the Atakapa-Ishak/Chawasha tribe, he sees water levels rising in Plaquemines Parish firsthand. He grew up in Marrero but spent a lot of time as a child in Grand Bayou Indian Village, a small community in south Plaquemines Parish that is being threatened by the effects of climate change — rising sea levels, more intense tropical storms and land loss. With the erosion of barrier islands — which protect wetlands from storm surge and saltwater intrusion — life on the bayou is getting more precarious, said Phillips, whose parents moved back to the village after raising him in Marrero.
As “soon as the tide got high you see the marsh floating away,” Phillips told Verite News, referring to Hurricane Francine, which struck southeast Louisiana last month. “Next strong storm will come and take it all away.”
Communities like Grand Bayou, located outside the federal levee system, are increasingly vulnerable to storms as the shoreline recedes.
Over the past 60 years, the land-to-water ratio in Grand