Cuts

Cheerful! Cheerful, dangit, cheerful!

Granted, the weather has improved significantly. My mood is not nearly so foul as it has been. It’s warmer, and despite the considerable chance of rain today, I am mildly heartened.

But it comes with a bit of bad news. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries announced last week that they will cease publication of their magazine, Louisiana Conservationist this spring after a 50-year run.

It’s due to budget cuts mandated by the governor across the board, as well as the “streamlining” commission he set up.

The magazine, which is published four times a year for $12 a subscription, has been a link between the department and the public for half a century. It always contains something worth reading, often more than one. I have had an article published there myself.

The LDW&F has always been underfunded and understaffed. It has also been a less-profiled source of budget cuts than health and hospitals and education.

That’s really an abomination for a state that calls itself “The Sportsman’s Paradise.” Most of its revenues come from oil and gas revenues, a fraction of a percent, and license sales, fees and fines.

By LDW&F calculations released in 2008 “hunting, fishing, boating, wildlife watching and other outdoor activities generated $4.61 billion in 2006, the most recent data collection time frame. The total economic effect of those expenditures reached $6.75 billion, supporting 76,700 jobs and generating an estimated $446.2 million in state and local government tax revenues.”

That’s nothing to sneeze at. And though the department catches the blame for doing a poor job on most levels, it’s in fact lack of funding by the legislature that is to blame.

With a budget of $111 million, Arkansas beats us at about $123 million with no coastal waters and very little commercial fishing! And remember Arkansas also contains 3.1 million acres of National Forest land, 95,000 acres surrounding the Buffalo National River under the National Parks Service and other federal lands not being funded by the state.

And what I found on my visit there was a whole lot of clearly marked, well-placed signs that point to recreation areas, boat landings, walk-in access to rivers and much, much more. I saw great infrastructure and improvement.

Louisiana is mostly about enforcement; Arkansas is mostly about making “the natural state” most accessible to people.

What’s happened here? We were rolling in dough when oil was $140 a barrel, now we can’t live on $80 a barrel but for decades we survived on $40 a barrel. We have overspent and overextended ourselves again, mostly on sources that do you and me and Joe Blow absolutely squat worth of good.

Now we’re expected to bleed from their overzealous pork spending.

Of course the outdoors hurts me the most, but look at what they do to health and hospitals, education, you name it.

Culture, Recreation and Tourism also will be taking a hit from a $124 million budget, but thankfully they think they won’t have to shut down any state parks.

Absolutely incredible.

While we’re on the subject of our natural resources, the second meeting of the legislative-created Lake Fausse Point and Grand Avoille Cove Restoration Committee was held last week.

Created by Rep. Sam Jones, the committee heard a report from Glen Constant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service outlining the demise of the Atchafalaya River Basin over the last 250 years.

Constant used aerial images and historic records to show the diminishing of the basin from a gigantic inland lake system to a series of channels due to siltation after construction of the levee system after the flood of 1927.

Remarkably, Constant showed how with the river state at 1.8 feet at Butte Larose, only about 13 percent of the original standing water surface area of the basin remains. At normal stage, the percentage would be drastically less.

The data does not include Fausse Point, which is outside the basin now, thanks to the levee, but in essence what’s happening to the lake is merely a slower mirror image of what’s happened to the basin: Normal water flow patters have been so badly altered, sediment deposition is run amok.

Constant and Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Mike Walker agreed to put their heads together to develop a series of sediment traps designed to determine how much sediment is entering the lake, and from where. Hopefully by comparing satellite imagery with rainfall records and pumping schedules at the pumping station at Bayou Courtableau we can achieve some idea of exactly what the point source of sediment is, and how much.

Truthfully, there may not be much if anything that can be done to save the lake. But the commission – of which I am a member – has resolved to collect every scrap of data and information possible and consult as many experts as necessary to exhaust any and all possibilities to restoring the lake and cove to at least some degree of their previous vitality.

Wish us luck.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 1:03 pm and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.