Tip of Louisiana falls off recovery map

…”From day one, I felt like the government officials didn’t want us down here anymore,” said Lonnie Hamilton, 59, head of the three-generation oystering clan.

But his family is too tied to the ways of the bayou and refuses to budge.

This month, with intense lobbying from the Gulf Coast states, President George W. Bush signed a law to open up 8.3 million acres to new oil and gas production that will give Louisiana for the first time a share of revenue for coastal protection — an estimated $13 billion over 30 years.

But there are no guarantees Plaquemines will get what it wants or needs in coastal restoration.

With hundreds of thousands still displaced in New Orleans and a city below sea level to protect up there, lower Plaquemines feels low on the totem pole.

Reuters