Excerpt
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): The coast of Louisiana is crumbling into the Gulf of Mexico at an alarming rate. Over the last 80 years, it’s lost nearly 2,000 square miles. That’s as big as all of Rhode Island. Now a political fight has broken out in the state legislature over who’s going to help pay to try and repair the damage.
Hari Sreenivasan has our story.
WOMAN: I would like to introduce to John Barry.
MAN: Hi, John.
HARI SREENIVASAN (NewsHour): John Barry, the award-winning historian and writer, and a man who’s normally holed up in a book-lined office by himself, has lately become one of the busiest men in Louisiana.
JOHN BARRY, Author, “Rising Tide”: This is not just another piece of legislation.
HARI SREENIVASAN: He’s been talking to rotary clubs.
JOHN BARRY: I’m John Barry.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Testifying before the state legislature.
JOHN BARRY: There is no debate, scientifically, over that fact.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Why? Barry is fighting a controversial legal and political battle to try and force the powerful oil and gas industry to pay billions for the role their dredging and drilling has played in the erosion of the coast of Louisiana.
Barry is best known for his book “Rising Tide,” an account of the devastating 1927 flood in Louisiana. That bestseller made him something of a local celebrity, and has given him a platform to sound the alarm about the current land-loss crisis in the state.
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