HDNet's 'Dan Rather Reports' - Is the Disappearing Louisiana Coastline Our Nation's Biggest Environmental Challenge?

HDNet's 'Dan Rather Reports' - Is the Disappearing Louisiana Coastline Our Nation's Biggest Environmental Challenge?

Tuesday's program travels to the Bayou to investigate the rapid erosion of the Louisiana wetlands and what we can do to stop it - Tuesday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET

DALLAS, April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Tuesday night's "Dan Rather Reports" will present an unsettling picture of the rapidly disappearing Louisiana coastline - it is being gobbled up by the Gulf of Mexico at the average rate of 25 square miles per year - and if nothing is done to reverse this process, some scientists have predicted that by the year 2100, New Orleans will be underwater and most of what we know of Southern Louisiana will be gone.

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The reason for this drastic erosion is a system of levees, built to protect Louisiana and the other states along the Mississippi River. These levees, built by the Army Corps of Engineers after the historic Great Flood of 1927, have worked to control flooding, but they have also channeled the river, along with its life-giving sediment, right past the rich wetlands and into the Gulf of Mexico.

"We look at this like the biggest environmental challenge that our nation is facing today," said Garret Graves, a Louisiana native who worked on Capitol Hill on environmental issues. He has been hired by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to manage the recovery of the state's wetlands.

According to Graves, in about the last 80 years the state has lost about 2,300 square miles of coastal lands and wetlands to the Gulf of Mexico.

But, he says that there is a solution and it may be easier than you think.

Graves and his team have asked the Army Corps of Engineers to use more of the material that they currently dredge from the bottom of the Mississippi to keep shipping lanes open, and mechanically put it into the wetlands, mimicking Mother Nature's own process.

"If they did it today we could be building twelve to sixteen square miles of land per year," Graves tells Rather.

So, why is such an easy answer so hard to implement?

The Army Corps of Engineers says that its hands are tied by Congress, which has ordered it to dispose of the dredged sediment in the cheapest way possible - which is to flush it deep into the Gulf of Mexico.

Is the salvation the Louisiana's coastline mired in more governmental muck than it needs to rebuild itself? Find out the answers this Tuesday.

"Dan Rather Reports - Mud Flap" airs Tuesday, April 20 at 8:00 p.m. ET and will re-air at 11:00 p.m. ET to accommodate West Coast Prime Time.

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