Climate change down on the Alabama bayou

Bayou Le Batre.png
A man walks by a shrimp boat tossed upon a dock by Hurricane Katrina, in Bayou La Batre, Ala. The storm left dozens of shrimpers atop docks and marshes in the town, where about 75 of homes were damaged or destroyed. (Associated Press)
Regina Benjamin.jpgRegina Benjamin, M.D., M.B.A. 

By Regina M. Benjamin, MD, MBA, the 18th U.S. Surgeon General, founder and CEO, BayouClinic, Inc, Bayou La Batre, Alabama; and James B. McClintock, Ph.D., Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Author of Lost Antarctica and A Naturalist Goes Fishing

Alabama's 230-year old shrimping village of Bayou La Batre - of Forrest Gump fame - lies within a fragile network of bays and salt marshes and is vulnerable to sea level rise. Its shores sit just five feet above sea level on Alabama coastal soil that is slowly, but surely, being covered by water. 

In 2005 Hurricane Katrina brought a 16-foot storm surge that left a trail of gutted homes and seafood processing plants, along with shrimping boats capsized and stranded in the pine trees. Despite recent efforts to build a mile-and-a-half long protective breakwater on a small island south of Bayou La Batre, large areas of coastal marsh continue to erode. 


The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are warming more rapidly than similarly sized bodies of water, and for the first time on record, this past winter the waters did not cool. As we just experienced this past month with Houston's Hurricane Harvey, future hurricanes will use this additional heat to intensify, become stronger and produce storm surges that go further inland, causing more damage.  Just as water heated in a pot to a boil expands and bubbles over, Gulf waters are expanding as they warm, contributing to sea level rise.  Melting waters from the distant ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica also add to this rise in sea level. 

The economy of Bayou La Batre's seafood industry, including our once-plentiful oyster harvest depend on a balanced ecosystem.  Torrential rains can flood the marshes with too much fresh water and kill the oysters.  On the other hand, too little rain can raise the salt content of bays and estuaries, which will attract snails that drill into the oysters and eat their flesh.  Also with warmer waters and higher salt levels, oysters are more likely to carry Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria that can cause serious skin, and gastrointestinal infections, making the oysters unsafe to eat. 

There are health effects as well.  A combination of greater humidity and higher temperature can increase the potential for heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and even heat-induced death.  As we experience warmer Gulf Coast winters, mosquitoes and other insects are at greater risk of carrying diseases such as Zika, West Nile, and Dengue.  Locals have recently noticed more swarms of termites; one swarm was so thick it delayed a little league softball game. 

Whether you believe in global warming or not, and regardless of your politics, something is happening to our Bayou and other coastal communities.  Last month, the governor of Louisiana declared the disappearance of their coast a national emergency.  Changes to the environment are no longer far from home, or someone else's problem.  It is happening in our own backyard, along our coasts, and in our Bayou, affecting our lives and our livelihoods.

As we pursue a more humane and just society, each of us has the responsibility to protect our planet for future generations.  Pope Francis said it succinctly in his 2015 speech to the United Nations,

"The ecological crisis, and the large-scale destruction of biodiversity, can threaten the very existence of the human species, .... Any harm done to the environment, therefore is harm done to humanity."