Customer Reviews

Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America's Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast

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This book is an admirable discussion of the destruction of Louisiana's wetlands, the effects up to the year 2001, and the probable disastrous consequences for the future, including those that have now resulted from Hurricane Katrina.

In the aftermath of Katrina there will be many efforts to assign blame, both by the media and by politicians. This book serves as necessary background for understanding what really happened, and how it came to pass.

My own view, partly formed from this book, but also from various other knowledge of Southern Louisiana and changes over the years in that area, is that no one person or group should be blamed for the results of Katrina. Those were foreseeable and were foreseen, and remedial measures to reduce the impact of a major hurricane striking Louisiana's coastal areas and the city of New Orleans were well understood, as were their costs. So how did the catastrophe predicted in this book occur, despite widespread knowledge? Remedial measures could not have prevented very serious losses from such a hurricane, but the losses could have been greatly reduced; however, the remedial measures to achieve that would have been extremely expensive, and no group, whether of citizens, of advocates, of corporations, of legislators, of bureaucrats, or of federal or state officials, felt that expnditure of all that money, which would also have had some adverse effects, was important enough to take priority over numerous other major expenditures for the welfare of the poulation, the economy, and the environment. After the catastrophe, of course, comes the finger-pointing. But if my view is correct, the extent of this catastrophe is mostly due to the fact that hardly anyone anywhere was willing to fight for the extremely expensive remedial measures that would have limited it. This book is a somber reminder that although in most respects our private and public institutional structures in the USA work extremely well, in some cases such as this one they do not put priority on mitigating enormous risks.

Read this book and weep! (And ask yourself which other equally well-known risks of catastrophe we are taking no steps to mitigate.)

This book is not simply another environmental thesis. It is a word-portrait of the land sinking and the sea rising and the people who live in between. And unlike many national preserves the Louisiana Coast is rich with industry and the people who live and work in this fragile ecosysytem of the land between the Mississippi River and Texas are acutely aware that it is a very delicate balance between man's use and abuse of this precious national treasure.
The people who have given America Cajun food, Cajun music, Mardi Gras and New Orleans Jazz are responsible fot the catching and distribution of 25% of the seafood consumed in the 48 states. The vanishing wetlands are criss-crossed with 20,000 miles of oil and natural gas pipelines through which flow 20% of our nation's oil, 25% of our nation's natural gas. Additionally,30% of our nation's imported oil is transferred from tankers to pipelines in South Louisiana and then on to consumers in dozens of states. 80% of this nation's offshore production flows from the Gulf of Mexico through a maze of pipelines.
During the last quarter of a century, ending in 2001, Louisiana had lost 30% of its coastline. With 2002 Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isadore have greatly escalated the crisis. According to state officials insured property loss due from these two storms exceeded one billion dollars. Accessing the land loss is a huge task and researchers are working hard to put a number on the acres lost.
Hallowell has spent much of the last two decades trekking around the swamps amd marshes and getting to know the people and their love of this land. He spent countless hours in government meetings and even accompanied people from Louisiana to Washington D.C. where they lobbied for the funds to rescue the Louisiana Coast. Hallowell has a good sense of history and the way people and their cultures have altered their land,.
What sets Hallowell a part from many people who call themselves "environmentalists" is his recognition of the need for man and nature to coexist.
He writes:"Many people have yet to equate a healthy anvironment with a healthy business, a lesson Louisiana's are beginning to understand. In fact, it is the primary lesson that the country can learn from Louisiana. Ultimately, there is little room for separation between business and environment, between environment and people who operate best hand in hand."

This book is extraordinary in scope and documents a crisis in Louisiana that threatens the mainland. Hallowell has done his homework and captures the human drama as individuals, the oil industry, landowners, sugar cane farmers, shrimpers, oyterman, fishermen and several government organizations stuggle to put their differences aside and finally start working together to achieve the same goal.
Hallowell explains the delicate balance between man's desire to use and sometimes abuse these fragile ecosystems and his certain knowledge that abuse is leading to permanent loss. He has portrayed not only the environmental situation but also the people who have given America Cajun food, Cajun music, Mardi Gras and New Orleans Jazz. These people are involved in the production of 20% of this nations seafood and 20% of this nation's oil. Mr. Hallowell has spent years researching the people who live in this area where land meetsthe sea and published an excellent People of the Bayou in 1979. It seems to me he has spent the last two decades doing the research that has allowed him to write this beautiful, poetic and timely book.

Louisianas wetlands are a religious thing for Christopher Hallowell. Life begins for untold animal and plant species in the twilight of swamps and the hidden reaches of marshes, he writes. They are breeding grounds, cradles, larders, the source of life, fecund beyond comprehension.

In Holding Back the Sea, Hallowell sounds the alarm on behalf of these natural nurseries. Louisianas 300-miles of wetlands--almost half the coastal wetlands in the US--are rapidly succumbing to man-made depredations. Artificial levees, reckless tunneling, and drilling for oil are killing off native wildlife, from marsh grass to oyster to muskrat. Throw in some global warming which is raising the level of the adjacent Gulf of Mexico, and youve got an entire state slowly sinking below sea level.

Its not just a plethora of critters in peril, Hallowell explains. The loss of wilderness threatens Louisianas booming oil and natural gas industries whose pipes lie under a shallow layer of sand on an eroding beach. With Louisiana quietly providing 25% of the nations natural gas and nearly 20% of its oil, the prospect of losing this resource is horrifying. Salt water intrusion on freshwater wetlands also endangers Louisianas oysters and the communities that have for generations made their livings oystering. Coastal erosion makes southern Louisiana, including New Orleans, vulnerable to hurricane devastation which could also wreck havoc with the nations oil supply.

Why is a nation so environmentally conscious letting it happen? Hallowell cites some tentative answers. Louisianas reputation for dumping toxins in its own marshes is one reason. The states relative invisibility is another. While Floridians raise a hue and cry over the everglades, the death of Louisianas sweeping wetlands provokes few headlines, Hallowell indicates. The equal for sheer beauty, biological diversity, and cultural significance as the Everglades, but infinitely more productive, they are located in a place lacking Floridas political clout and ties to east coast influence, he writes.

Though its necessarily scientific and technical, Hallowells book is eminently readable--partly because of his ability to poeticize nature. His description of the lovely, but sinister oyster driller is particularly haunting. His ability to trace the demise of the Louisiana oyster backwards from the invasion of the oyster driller, to salt water intrusion, to Corps of Engineer tunneling conveys the fragile interconnection of living things in a way few writers have accomplished since Farley Mowats Never Cry Wolf.

Hallowell did a good job detailing the threat "the big one" posed to New Orleans. He describes the levees and the system of pumps used to protect the city from flooding. He reported that a slow moving hurricane would destroy the city of New Orleans by causing Lake Pontchartrain to break the levee.

It's worth buying for that chapter alone.

Mr. Hallowell's book hits on a subject long overdue for national attention. The crisis on the Louisiana coast is a national travesty and Mr. Hallowell hits the nail on the head despite a few minor errors such as the governor's height. The author presents the situation not just in terms of the impending environmental disaster, but the economic and social devastation that awaits just around the corner unless Louisiana gets significant help from the entire country to carry out solutions.

Hallowell as clearly written this book out of love and passion for a potential loss of one of America's premier natural places. The Louisana wetlands provide one of the great breeding grounds for wildlife above and below the waterline. It's slowly eroding away. Hallowell identifies this danger and explores the potential tragedy with an incisive intellectural curiosity and great analytical skill. Hallowell is empathetic but never criticizes directly. He allows you to draw your own conclusions based on a marvelous array of evidence. A masterful work. He knows how to write. It's an interesting read.

The book "Holding Back the Sea" is an ecological and economic history of the marshlands of Louisiana, from its first exploitation by French explorers in the 1600s to its uses as seafood farm, tourist trap, oil and gas source and port in the 1990s. The book describes the various uses for this area of America, how it all depends on and effects the ecology and geography of the marshlands, and how human influences have changed the area.

The book is divided into twelve chapters, each of them examines the human-marshland interplay from a different point of view. These views include that of alligator hunter, flood control expert, local elected official, lifelong shrimper, and conservationist. Thru reading each chapter, one gets to see the complexity of the human-human, nature-human, and nature-nature relationships, and how over the last century, the first two have worked together to destroy the latter. Specifically, alterations to the natural environment have made the land more susceptible to erosion, hurricanes, and flooding. The result is that dozens of square miles of marshland sink into the Gulf of Mexico each year. Efforts to stop this loss eventually require various parties to sacrifice, and this always dooms any effort.

The book describes in clear detail how the people of Louisiana now realize the importance of holding back the sea, or keeping the land elevated, depending on the point of view. The actions and inactions described in this book reveal a tragi - comedy of truly grand proportions, something truly worthy of the grandness of America. Though written before Hurrican Katrina of the 2005 summer, the facts and stories it contains are very important for all Americans to know. I highly recommend this book.

Christopher Hallowell is not your average environmentalist bemoaning the impending loss of a part of America's natural beauty. Hallowell is a writer who travelled to the Louisiana coast and fell in love with its people and wonders. Now, with Holding Back the Sea, he returns some 20+ years later and chronicles the disappearing south Louisiana coast.

The coast's disappearance, according to Hallowell, affects more than just the natural beauty of the area. It affects the petroleum and seafood supply for nearly half of the United States. It affects the livelihoods and a way of life for thousands of Louisianans who live and thrive in these bayou swamplands. And it puts the city of New Orleans at severe risk of disastrous hurricanes and severe flooding.

Hallowell presents in everyman language the history of Louisiana, and especially southern coastal Louisiana, and shows how this history for hundreds of years has had its effect on the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico delta in Louisiana. He does so through very human contact with the people who live on the bayou and affect it's future.

It is this homey touch, this affinity for humans, that makes Hallowell's appeal so much more effective than the appeals for endangered plant life that the typical environmentalist authors bombard us with.

As Hallowell points out, the fight to save the Louisiana coast has been joined by environmentalists, government bureacrats, politicians, and corporations a like. And it will take all of their cooperation and wisdom to solve a problem that is only getting worse. Hallowell makes very clear the stagnation in efforts to save the coast. As a matter of fact, the way that Hallowell slips from optimism at the beginning of the book to frustration and discouragement near the end of the book, is disconcerting but likely very typical of the frustrations felt by south Louisianans.

I was disappointed that the book took such a discouraging turn. It is testament to how bureacracies trying to solve problems often merely stop any progress that otherwise may be made.

This is a must read for politicians and others who view the loss of the Louisiana coast as inconsequential. New Orleanians beware. This book will frighten you in a very friendly way. A very good book.

Great book. I just finished it after reading Bayou Farewell (another superb read). If I could ever meet Mr. Hallowell, I would shake his hand for a wonderful job and then shake my head in amazement that all of "the groups" can't get together with one voice on the restoration and saving of the Gulf Coast area. I wonder, reading the book now, if congress would have given all of the money as requested a few years ago considering the costs of Katrina???