Nobody Knew Louisiana’s Coast Was Disappearing. Until Woody Gagliano Told Them
Dr. Sherwood “Woody” Gagliano in St. Bernard Parish in 2015. Photo courtesy Coastal Environments Inc.
Everyone can remember when certain people and moments changed their lives. But when I heard about the passing of Woody Gagliano last week, I remembered a time and man who not only changed my life, but the course of Louisiana history.
It was in the early 1970s when a young geologist from LSU named Sherwood “Woody” Gagliano came to discuss the findings of his research on the Mississippi River delta with the editorial board of The States-Item — the New Orleans afternoon newspaper where I worked as a sportswriter.
What he said opened my eyes even as it made my heart sink, because it meant the wetlands I loved so much were heading to an early death.
Gagliano’s research uncovered two shocking facts.
We were losing huge amounts of our coastal ecosystem each year, a rate that would eventually be pegged at 50 square miles a year for that decade alone.
And a major reason for that disaster was the intensive resource extraction and canal dredging across the delta done by the oil and gas industry.
If we continued on this trajectory, Gagliano argued, our cherished lifestyles, our homes and our industries — from seafood to the port to energy production — would be imperiled.
Gagliano’s findings were not well received by community leaders or most citizens. This was a time when even people who worked and played in the wetlands thought our vast coastal marshes were limitless. And the oil and gas industry was one of the most sacred cows in all of America, especially Louisiana. After all, oil and gas royalties had been contributing up to 40% of the state’s revenue and had raised tens of thousands of Louisianians out of poverty.
But his research provided answers to questions that had been troubling me for several years.
