Documenting the Story of the Lost Wetlands

April 2012

According to Elizabeth Coffman, Associate Professor and program director of International Film and Media Studies, Katrina and the BP oil spill disasters are only part of a larger, on-going environmental problem in Louisiana. In her recently completed documentary, "Veins in the Gulf," Coffman shares the story of the disappearing coastlines and wetlands of Louisiana.

"It's a long-term anthropological look at a community trying to address its coastal problems that have to do largely with flooding and land erosion," Coffman said. "The hurricanes and oil spill are sort of the disasters on the side, but the bigger national story here is about sea-level rise and how coastal communities are trying to solve their coastal flooding problems."

A member of the University of Tampa faculty, Coffman was asked by fellow instructor and poet Martha Serpas to visit Louisiana to examine the problem. 

"Martha brought me and my film making co-director and co-producer Ted Hardin to Louisiana to introduce us to the story in 2003," Coffman said. "She dragged us over there and said you need to tell this story in a documentary."

Coffman later returned to Louisiana with documentary students, whose footage is used in the final cut, along with the narration and poetry by Serpas.

Filming was postponed, however, after Coffman moved to Chicago and experienced a brain-injury after a serious bicycle accident.

"Katrina happened [in 2005] and we picked up the film again and went back seriously to document this community trying to deal with these environmental crises."

When Deepwater Horizon occurred in 2010, Coffman and Hardin had already completed a section in the film about the oil industry, which emphasized the damage done to the wetlands by manmade marsh canals. Coffman explained how "human interaction" is the primary cause of these disasters. 

"That can be building levees that keep sediments from depositing to oil industry interaction," she said.

For more efficient shipping and to access rigs, marsh canals dug by oil companies contributed to loss of wetlands, which act as a protective barrier during hurricanes. 

"The real story with the oil spill was the use of dispersements," Coffman explained. "The long-term toxicology effects with the amounts of dispersements they used is unknown."

Coffman explained how national and international attention on the two disasters called for their recognition in the film. 

"People are looking to have those disasters referenced, and both of those disasters are connected to the larger environmental crisis of land loss or damage to that land."

The documentary features several characters, including award winning blues musician Tab Benoit. Founder of the advocacy group Voice of the Wetlands, Benoit hosts an annual music festival to raise awareness about this crisis of wetland erosion.

"He's been a musician first and an advocate second. And many of the people in our film have that kind of combination."
    
Musician and levee director Windell Curole is featured testifying before congress after the Katrina disaster.

"Radio-host Kirck Cheramie quit while on-air because he was so frustrated with the lack of government support of the area-- and this is right as Gustav and Ike were headed in that direction."

There are several moments of individual crisis captured in the film, as well. 

"Kerry St. Pe, director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program had a stroke while we were filming." 

With nearly 8 years invested in the area, Coffman explained how she was able to watch the community come together from all ideological and political perspectives to find a solution.

"In our film we present the solution of pipeline sediment transport where you use pipelines to shoot dirt, basically, onto barrier islands, onto the coastline, and it more rapidly gets dirt where it can help stop the erosion."

Another, long-term approach proposed by academics is "diversion" of the Mississippi river, which allows for natural deposits of sediments.

"We have someone in our film saying, yeah, it can build land in 1,500 years, but we have a more rapid crisis and we need to get dirt on the coastlines and wetlands to slow down these hurricanes."
    
In 2010, Coffman and Hardin presented a TED Talk in D.C. following the BP oil spill. Coffman was named one of the Audubon Societys "Women of the Gulf" in 2011.
    
"Veins in the Gulf" has been screened at the Arizona International Film Festival, The Finger Lakes Environmental Film Festival, Duke University, and continues to be screened around the country
Coffman explained how the rising sea-level is a crisis affecting not only national but international coastlines as well.

"Louisiana happens to just be the point where they are already at or below sea level in some places," Coffman said. "They're the first to go under, but they wont be the last."