The wetlands of southern Louisiana are America's wetlands.
They are America's wetlands because every bit of soil was built by flood waters from 41% of the Continental United States. They provide 30% of the nation's seafood production; are a conduit for 30% of the nation's energy needs; and are the cradle of American music and food and unique cuisine born out of America's freedom, which led to southern Louisiana's unique cultural gumbo.

Louisiana's Wetlands are the end result of America's intricate water basin system. 41% of the continental U.S. drains into the Mississippi River down to the Gulf of Mexico That includes 31 states & 2 Canadian provinces, effecting over two-thirds of the country directly and indirectly Total area drained 1.2 million square miles including 160 million tons of sediment that should be building the coast of Louisiana, instead is being washed out into the Gulf

The Cause and it's Effect
Erosion and Redirection of the Mississippi River
The wetlands of Louisiana fade daily due to erosion - at the rate of one football field an hour. When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dammed the Mississippi with levees, it cut the river's ability to hold back the power of the Gulf. The Gulf has been winning for nearly 100 years - and its spoils are lost land. In the early 1700s, 215 million acres of wetlands existed in the United States. Now in the beginning of this century, 90 million acres are left. That number is decreasing at a staggering rate.

Levees	Channeling	Rising Sea Level
Levees confine the Mississippi River to its current path, preventing the annual spring flooding that deposited invaluable sediment and nutrients to wetlands.	Over the last 200 years, industry and residents alike have cut numerous channels and canals through the wetlands for transportation and oil exploration. These channels provide a ready pathway for tidal exchange and the movement of unnatural water patterns, ultimately increasing erosion and wetlands demise.	A world-wide rise in sea level has been occurring for the last several decades. While this is a natural planetary process, the problem is exacerbated by the heavy amount of channeling in coastal Louisiana. With more channels, salt water has more avenues for invasion.
Saltwater Intrusion	Subsidence	Barrier Island Loss
The result of rising sea level and channeling is saltwater intrusion. Freshwater and brackish coastal wetlands are very complicated ecosystems. The intrusion of foreign substances, like too much salt water, can offset the balance and rapidly destroy wetlands.	Subsidence is a natural process of ground settling. In wetlands systems, subsidence is typically offset by the accumulation of new sediments during spring floodings. But because spring flooding no longer occurs, new sediments don’t accumulate, and subsidence gains the advantage.	Louisiana’s barrier islands are the first line of defense against hurricanes and tropical storms. As they have degraded over time, their protective nature has grown weaker. Additionally, the islands are key habitat for several wildlife species.

With that levee system in place, now the Mississippi River basin system sends 160 million tons of sediment to the continental shelf each year. Most of this material is unavailable for marsh building processes because levees prevent overbank sedimentation. With it's loss goes the coastal marshes, swamps and islands that were previously created by the same process centuries ago. That area of land provides environmental protection to the communities, cities, states and country as a whole.

Take a look at how much of the wetlands were lost after the 2005 hurricanes hit. Had that area been allowed to build up stronger, it would've been a protective barrier instead of ending up bare.

Without calculating hurricanes into the equation, Louisiana loses 25 to 35 square miles of wetlands each year. With that much land loss occurring, future hurricanes will have nothing to help slow it down, leaving them to reach inland faster and leaving everyone vulnerable to higher category levels of disasters just as Hurricane Katrina experienced. Having that protection in place would've lessened the forces of wind and water significantly.

What would America do if the state of Delaware was washed off the map?
That is how much land loss has occurred since 1932 off the coast of Louisiana (1,900+ sq. miles). By 2050, another 1,000 sq. miles of Louisiana’s coastal marshes, swamps, and islands will disappear. That is close to the size of Rhode Island. The wetlands of Louisiana are equally important to any portion of land in any state, if not more so.

Louisiana and all of America will be affected if the demise of wetlands should continue. With 40% of the United States coastal wetlands, southern Louisiana makes up 80 to 90% of the nation's coastal wetlands loss. As large of a problem that it is, we now have an understanding to solve this problem. America needs to support Louisiana in restoring the wetlands. Voice of the Wetlands (VOW) is the voice of those people who seek human intervention to fix a natural balance disrupted by previous intervention.

While the national media and government acknowledges that Louisiana's wetlands are directly responsible for most of the gas and oil industry and the nation's seafood industry, it is VOW's wish to make clear the direct effect the declining wetlands has on its people, heritage, and way of life for one of the richest states in tradition and cultures in all of the world.

It's more than just Louisiana's culture. It's America's culture.
As the wetlands supports those cultures, it serves a crucial role in the American economy. Seafood. Natural gas. Oil, petrochemicals. Plastics. Protection of population centers and major industrial hubs from hurricanes. The wetlands are here to support America, now more than ever, the wetlands need America's support.

Continue to visit this Web site to learn more about the problem, possible solutions, funding sources, plus Louisiana's culture and heritage to help us make the changes necessary before these problems become too big to overcome, no matter who tries to intervene.