At issue are hundreds of canals dug for transportation in the state's inland and offshore oil patch over decades which - in a phenomenon much better understood today - helped salt water intrude further inland, speeding up disintegration of fragile coastal ecosystems as well as diminishing natural flood protection provided by the wetlands.
"The industry has taken about $470 billion of the state’s natural resources during the past 20 years, and we ask that it pick up its share of the increased costs of flood protections required to offset the loss of protective coastal wetlands," said John Barry, vice president of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority, made up of three New Orleans-area levee boards.
"The
