Ain’t but one road out

The loss of Louisiana’s wetlands is finally hitting the homes of residents of the Isle de Jean Charles. After centuries of habitation, the island is beginning to lose its ability to sustain human life, and the remaining residents are debating leaving the island for good.

At the center of the issue lies Albert Naquin, chief of the tribe that primarily inhabits the island, the Isle de Jean Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimachas Confederation of Muskogees. After Hurricane Ike, the island was damaged so badly Terrebonne Parish nearly condemned the entire island. Although Naquin bargained to save the place then, he’s started planning a new complex to move his people to as the island slowly fades into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Now, it’s so far gone, there’s nothing they can do about it. It’s like a man who has cancer, but you don’t find out ’til he’s almost dead. This is our cancer here,” said Naquin. “As far as for us to get out of there, I guess we have to. It depends on the hurricanes, but if they don’t change anything, I give this place 10 years.”

Glory Days: They’ll pass you by

The Isle de Jean Charles was once a vibrant community nearly four miles wide that had a church, grocery stores, a school, a dance hall and about 325 residents.

“We used to have cows. We had chickens, everything,” said Naquin. “It was like paradise.”

After decades of erosion, all that remains is a quarter-mile strip of land penned in by levees and borrow canals. Roughly 70 residents, a volunteer firehouse and smattering of camps have withstood the punishment of hurricane after hurricane.

In the last six years, the island has been flooded five times. For every hurricane that sweeps through, a few more residents leave and a few more houses are left derelict. The last church left after Hurricane Rita.

“I’ve seen the Island grow, and I’m watching it die,” said Naquin.

The lone business left on the island is the marina, owned by the Chiasson Family. Lora Ann Chiasson of Pointe-aux-Chenes, a councilman for the United Houma Nation, was born on the island and remembers a much different place.

“This used to be like oak trees all over the place,” said Chiasson. “They had gardens, they had watermelons, and now look. Right here in this bayou, you can get shark and stingray now. That’s a saltwater fish. That’s how we know the saltwater is coming in. I mean it’s here; it’s pure salt. It’s not brackish anymore.”

The island became a place where eras are marked by the time between hurricanes. According to Naquin, the isle hit its peak between hurricanes Juan and Bill in the mid-1980s.

“That’s when everybody leaves, after the hurricanes,” said Naquin.

The islands slow motion disappearing act is almost universally blamed on wetlands loss by those on the islands.

John Verdin, a 60-year-old contractor from Point-Aux-Chenes blamed the lack of barrier islands in particular.

“If they don’t do anything more than what they’re doing right now, I give it another 10 years. Point-aux-Chenes, same thing. They don’t do nothing with the barrier islands. The hurricanes washed them away, and they didn’t rebuild them. They should have, but they didn’t.”

Years ago, the Isle de Jean Charles was considered the last inhabitable piece of land. Now, it’s considered the last of the barrier islands.

“If they don’t do something with the barrier islands, who knows?” said Chiasson. “I mean right now, we’re a barrier island.”

Wetlands loss has three major causes: the silt flow from the Mississippi River has been cut off, oil companies have dug about 10,000 miles of canals in the Gulf and sea levels have risen naturally over the past few decades. According to residents of the island, oil company canals have had the most impact.

“Before they built those oil field canals, basically we were OK,” said Naquin.

Chaisson, added, “First they stopped up the flow of the Mississippi, and then the oil fields came in, and they just ripped the land up. See that bayou right there? That was perfectly good land. And then oil fields came in. And you know why? This is just a little area here; they can do what they want.”

Despite their adamance about wetlands’ loss, neither Chiasson nor Naquin claim to be environmentalists.

“I mean, I’m not,” said Chiasson. “I recycle with my nieces or whatever, but I’m just very passionate about the land in this area because I see it leaving quick. Most people have no idea how fast the land is just washing away

“No, I’m not one of those,” said Naquin of the environmentalist monicker. “Don’t worry about the animals. They’ll be fine. Worry about the people first.”

Should I stay or should I go?

Perhaps the easiest way to understand this place is to take a drive down Island Road. Some houses look like they haven’t been touched since one storm or another all but leveled them. They remain little more than blue-tarp roofs and blown out windows. On some lots, only elevated platforms and a pile of twisted lumber serve as a reminder of what used to be someone’s home.

Just across the street, there’s a house with fresh siding, elevated 20 feet into the air with youngsters playing underneath. Next door, contractors hammer away, working to elevate another residence. Those who have already left clearly haven’t looked back, and those who wish to stay appear to be digging in for the long haul.

This has made Naquin’s intention to relocate all the more contentious.

“I don’t know who he thinks he is to actually say something like that, saying, ‘you’ve got to go,’ But that’s just me,” said Chiasson. “The one’s that aren’t leaving aren’t going anywhere, no matter what he says.”

For his part, Naquin says he’s never tried to tell anyone they have to leave.

“Those that want to go, let’s go, and those who want to stay, that’s fine.” said Naquin. “If they like the fighting the mud and the water and all that, go ahead. A lot of people are telling me, ‘we know we have to leave, but we don’t want to leave yet.’ And that’s fine.”

Naquin’s biggest desire is to keep his people together. After each hurricane, a few more people move out on their own, and are kept away from the tribe’s people and traditions.

“We want to be relocated as a group, as one tribe to protect the tribe’s identity, the culture and the history – everything,” said Naquin. “We want to give the people who were forced since Hurricane Andrew a chance to come too.”

Chiasson questioned the idea of moving American Indians any further.

“I guess relocation, that word it’s just, it’s a strong word,” he said, “and a lot of our Indian peoples have been relocated here and there and everywhere already.”

The plan to relocate has caused a squabble between Naquin’s Biloxi-Chitamacha Confederation of Muskogees, and Chiasson’s United Houma Nation. The United Houma Nation technically holds no jurisdiction over the land since Naquin’s group left the Houmas in 1995. However, the Houmas were the official tribe of the island people for decades and still holds some sway among residents.

The rift has led to some tense and confusing parish council meetings with both tribes trying to be heard.

Edison Dardar is a 60-year-old native of the island who estimates he leaves the island three times a year. He said he wouldn’t leave the island unless the island stayed under water for good, or somebody paid him $250,000.

“I was born in the water,” he said. “That’s my food I eat over here,” he added, pointing to about 50 pounds of shrimp, today’s haul.

For Dardar, leaving is the last option because he’s never done anything else. “It’s the only thing I’ve ever done. Fishing. I don’t know how to do anything else,” he said.

“After the next hurricane, I’m coming back. I know the hurricane’s not going to move me, even if it breaks the road in half.”

If Mother Nature forces his hand, Naquin envisions a new settlement for his tribe along the lines of family housing on a military base. The island has already eroded into a memory of its former self. Naquin says he wants a place where his people can live in one community again.

“More than half the people want to come,” said Naquin. “I believe once we finish building and they see the houses we’re getting, they’ll come. If we could just the money to get it done, we could get the people.”

Ain’t but one way out

The most immediate issue facing the people of the island and the parish is the state of Island Road. A 2.5-mile section of the road traverses open waters between the island and Point-Aux-Chenes, and is the only connection to the outside world.

The road was so torn apart by Hurricane Ike last year that half the inbound lane was washed away, so that two cars can’t pass without one pulling over. The opening to the road still has signs giving as many disclaimers as a prescription drug.

Pete Lambert, who represents the Isle de Jean Charles on the Terrebonne Parish Council, says the road was damaged because of the one- two-punch of Gustav and Ike.

“Gustav came and washed all the bigs rock out and it undressed the whole road of the protection it had. When the next storm came 11 days later, there was nothing to protect it,” he explained.

Like much of the island, the road remains a near ruin. Over half of the inbound lane is washed away in some places.

“There’s no reason for island road to be in that shape,” said Chiasson. “It’s over a year now, that road has been that way. People don’t realize that island road is like a barrier to Houma right now.”

The biggest difficulty for the parish is justifying the expense of fixing a road that is used by a handful or residents and campers. The Federal Emergency Agency has already approved some funding to fix the road, but simply repairing the road to pre-storm levels will leave the road under water during especially high tides.

According to Al Levron, Terrebonne Parish manager, “If we did not provide any elevation, Island Road would periodically, other than storms, be under water.

“We are waiting for approval to provide additional 1-foot of elevation to the roadway. We made requests to go to 4.5- or 5-foot elevation, but we have not identified any regulation that would allow FEMA to reimburse us to that level.”

Although some have openly questioned the logic of spending millions of dollars to fix a road that gets such little use, and even the island’s residents only give the place another 10 years of usefulness, the road is parish-owned, and it is obligated to fix it.

“It’s a parish-maintained road and we are obligated to repair it,” said Lambert. “You can’t force the people to move because we don’t want to fix the road. We’ve got to maintain all the utilities out there.”

The road’s repairs are still in permitting and funding limbo, but Parish President Michel Claudet hopes to have the road repaired by spring.

In the meantime, the road remains a serious problem. Those who drive it every day complain of repeated damage to their cars. And in spite of numerous signs, fishermen continue to park along the road to fish, adding to the problem.

“The parish has passed an ordinance that it’s a $500 fine if you get caught fishing on the side of the road. And people have no problem with that,” said Chiasson. “It’s fine if you want to recreation fish down there, but fix the road so that people have a safe place to fish.”

As with everything else on the island, the road’s condition has a great deal to do with the loss of land.

“[The parish] used to have to cut grass on either side of the road. Now the whole road isn’t even there,” said Naquin.

For people like Edison Dardar, the road isn’t much of a concern. “If they fix the road, that’s good for me. If they don’t, that’s good by me too,” he said. “I’m not leaving either way.” The larger injustice to Dardar is that the island is on the verge of being shut down while equally vulnerable parts of the mainland aren’t under the same scrutiny.

“After the last hurricane, for two month’s they had water in Point-Aux-Chenes. We only had water five days. Nobody talks about that, though. They’re trying to move the poor people out of here, but not Pointe-aux-Chenes,” he said. “Right there in Pointe-aux-Chenes, that’s not any better than this island.”

A house on Isle de Jean Charles remains in tatters over a year after hurricanes Gustav and Ike pounded the region. * Photo by BRETT SCHWEINBERG