Mississippi River did much to develop a 

 sense of permanence and encourage 

 industrial expansion. The levees also 

 promoted waterborne transportation by 

 channelling the Mississippi River and its 

 Dredging to 

 create new ones 

 These fostered 

 and stimulated 



distributaries, 

 channels and 

 commonpl ace. 

 transportation 



deepen 



became 



more 



further 



commercial expansion. 



New industries developed based on 

 Louisiana's coastal resources. The late 

 1800' s and early 1900' s were a time of 

 widespread harvesting of the extensive 

 cypress forests of the coast. The fishing 

 and fur-trapping industries expanded. But 

 the most significant event in the state's 

 life was the discovery of oil in Jennings 

 in 1901. 



Oil reserves in 

 concentrated around salt 



Louisiana are 

 domes that occur 



across the coastal wetlands and on the 

 continental shelf. The inland fields were 

 developed first. An enormous expansion of 

 petroleum demand began in the war years of 

 1941-45. This resulted in dredging 

 thousands of miles of canals through the 

 coastal wetlands for access to drilling 

 sites and for pipelines, constructing 

 enormous refineries and petrochemical 

 processing facilities, and secondarily 

 stimulating many other industries (Fi-gures 

 2 and 3). As oil and gas reserves were 

 depleted in the inland marshes, production 

 moved offshore. This shift increased 

 pressure for more and deeper navigation 

 canals to link the offshore rigs with 

 land-based facilities. Production of oil 

 and gas reached its peak in 1971 and has 

 since been declining (Figure 4). However, 

 the search for new oil continues, and 

 wetland modification has by no means 

 stopped. Louisiana's wetland management 

 problems continue to be related to its 



Figure 2. The oil storage facility for the nation's only superport is constructed in a 

 salt dome in the middle of a Mississippi delta brackish marsh. The maze of pipes is the 

 primary aboveground expression. An old oilfield also sits atop this submerged salt dome 

 as shown by the network of tree-lined oilwell access canals (Photograph by Robert 

 Abernathy) . 



