What Will Happen to Louisiana’s Wetlands?

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Yesterday, my very esteemed colleague Kate Sheppard explained how cleanup methods could cause more damage than the Deepwater Horizon leak itself. Here in New Orleans, I chatted with rock-star wetlands researcher Denise J. Reed, who you heard on NPR and at congressional hearings when everyone was talking about post-Katrina coast restoration, and who says there could be more stories in this meme.

Take the Louisiana wetlands, that critical hurricane defense that was already incredibly beleaguered and is now further threatened by millions of gallons of oil. “The cleanup damage could be worse than the oil damage,” Reed says. “These areas are incredibly hard to get to. And incredibly delicate. You can’t just bring in heavy equipment and pressure-wash boulders like you did after Valdez.”

Reed will be working on the plan to remediate the wetlands after this new disaster, but designing, much less implementing, that plan is a ways away. First, researchers will have to figure out the impact of the spill, by painstakingly collecting new data in the wetlands and then comparing it to the pre-Deepwater research Reed and other scientists have been meticulously amassing for years. And of course, before any of that can begin, the leak has to stop. “It’s a difficult time now, because for a good while, we’ll be helpless,” Reed says. “We don’t know how long, how much, what way the wind will go. It’s like a hurricane coming at you, but really, really slowly, and with endless potential for damage.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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