Louisiana’s coastline has been shrinking. Since the 1930‘s, the state has lost about 1,900 square miles of land. It loses about enough land to fill a football field every hour. That land can act as a buffer to protect coastal communities from storm surges and rising sea levels.
The Interior Department estimates about 15 to 59% of the erosion is being caused by drilling for oil and gas. The industry itself has admitted to being responsible for 36% of the wetland loss. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority - East filed a lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies to help pay the estimated $50 billion in coastal restoration and protection the state will need over the next several years. US District Judge Nanette Jolivette Brown dismissed the lawsuit.
The Flood Protection Authority is expected to appeal. John Barry, a former vice chair of the Authority, said: “People want to call me an environmental activist, but this is not about activism. This is about law and order. The law required [companies] to clean up after themselves, and they didn’t do it.”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/02/15/3623349/judge-tosses-louisiana-lawsuit-against-oil-and-gas-companies/