LOUISIANA'S COASTAL TRIBES APPEAL FOR HELP

[Okwes]

LOUISIANA'S COASTAL TRIBES APPEAL FOR HELP

boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/49846/index.php

by Naomi Archer, Four Directions Relief Project
Email: fourdirections (nospam) riseup.net (verified)
Phone: [phone] Jan 2006

Four of Louisiana's coastal Native American tribes issued an urgent
appeal for support in the aftermath of Hurricane's Katrina and Rita.
Despite the buzz of recovery activity in New Orleans and on other
parts of the Gulf coast, tribal leaders say they have been forgotten
and their people continue to suffer.
Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees (BCCM), Pointe-au-Chien
Indian Tribe (PACIT) supported by Four Directions Relief Project

PRESS ADVISORY
For Immediate Release: 25 January 2006

For More Information Contact:
Albert Naquin - Chief, Isle de Jean Charles Band of the Biloxi-
Chitimacha
[phone] whitebuffaloa (at) netscape.net
Marlene Foret - Chairwoman, Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the Biloxi-
Chitimacha
[phone] mmforet (at) mobiletel.com
Charles Verdin - Chairman, Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe
[phone] pacit (at) cowscorner.com
Patty Ferguson - Tribal Attorney, Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe
480-425-2637 Ferguson (at) SacksTierney.com
Randy Verdun – Chief, Bayou Lafourche Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha
225-485-8765 bccmi (at) aol.com
Naomi Archer - Coordinator, Four Directions Relief Project
828.230.1404 fourdirections (at) riseup.net


LOUISIANA'S COASTAL TRIBES APPEAL FOR HELP
Unique Cultures On Edge of Extinction From Storms, Neglect

Southern Louisiana – Four of Louisiana's coastal Native American
tribes issued an urgent appeal for support in the aftermath of
Hurricane's Katrina and Rita. Despite the buzz of recovery activity
in New Orleans and on other parts of the Gulf coast, tribal leaders
say they have been forgotten and their people continue to suffer:

We understand the focus of the nation has been on the New Orleans
area in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. But the smaller
communities, especially the American Indian communities, are still in
dire need. We are grateful for all the donations that have been
received, but the amount is only enough to work on a few houses in
each community. Much more money is needed for our recovery efforts.
If we do not get additional support, our cultures will be lost.

The four tribes who issued the appeal are the Bayou Lafourche, Grand
Caillou/Dulac and Isle de Jean Charles Bands of the Biloxi-Chitimacha
(BCCM) as well as the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe (PACIT). Located
in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, their small communities,
situated on high ridges that extend like fingers into Louisiana's
coastal wetlands, are reeling from years of socio-economic neglect,
coastal land loss, and an absence of storm relief assistance.

"We are appealing to the foundations and large donors to support our
recovery efforts," said Randy Verdun, Chief of the Bayou Lafourche
Band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha. "It's a call to action, a call that we
hope is heard. Help us preserve our distinct cultures and traditions.
Without help, they will surely be lost."

On the forefront of Louisiana's much publicized land loss, tribal
communities that were historically dry are now flooding even during
small storms. Land that once held gardens and pastures has become
salt marsh or open water. Because of continued flooding and lack of
resources to repair and raise homes, tribal members are leaving the
traditional communities causing dispersion of culture and tribal
cohesion.

"There is no money and no materials. We don't want to loose all our
people," said Albert Naquin, Chief of Isle de Jean Charles Band of
the Biloxi-Chitimacha. Once thriving, Isle de Jean Charles, or The
Island, has become marshland marked by skeletons of dead oaks and
abandoned houses.

Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe Co-Chair Donald Dardar added, "All of
our homes have to be raised. We need money to elevate these homes."

Raising homes onto stilts would prevent flood damage but costs begin
at around $25,000 per home. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, up to
80% of Native Americans in the area live below the poverty line, and
few move on to college. Income supported by traditional fishing is
also threatened by cheap imported seafood and rising fuel costs. Few
have the funds to raise homes.

"Help! Help! Help!" Exclaimed Marlene Foret of the Grand Caillou
Dulac Band of the Biloxi Chitimacha, the largest of the four
tribes. "We need all the things that make homes livable- building
supplies, bedding, appliances, and furniture."

Terrebonne Parish estimates that 10,000 homes were flooded by
Hurricane Rita. Most of these were in the lower bayou where the
indian communities are located. Additional homes in Terrebonne and
Lafourche received wind damage from Katrina. While some storm relief
has come in, only a handful of relief organizations are working with
the tribes.

Four Directions Relief Project is one such organization. Created in
early October to support the needs of the bayou tribes, Four
Directions has helped to facilitate food and material donations as
well as volunteer workers for trash pick-up and home repair.

"With everyone focused on the city of New Orleans, we don't get
numbers of volunteers or large financial donations," said Four
Directions Coordinator Naomi Archer. "The people who live here are
proud and determined, but their determination can only go so far when
there aren't the resources or skilled volunteers to rebuild."

Federal storm relief has also been minimal. Red Cross distribution
ended months ago, insurance checks are slow, and FEMA trailers are
only beginning to trickle in to these communities. For many coastal
indians, basic housing is being denied by FEMA red tape or
bureaucratic technicalities.

"The thing is, if FEMA can't put a trailer [at a house] because the
sewage system isn't just right, then why can't they make it right for
these people?" Chief Albert said angrily.

While the relief effort moves at a snail's pace for the tribes,
community members are forced to live in moldy homes with leaky roofs.
Some homes are filled with extended family members or other families.
Spare money just isn't there for the extensive home repairs or to buy
new furniture and appliances. People are talking about moving away to
avoid the same thing all over again.

PACIT Chairman Charles Verdin added, "Knowing we have to go through
it again - it's tough."


TO MAKE A DONATION OR PROVIDE GRANT INFORMATION to the affected
tribes or to the Four Directions Relief Project, please contact the
following persons:
Isle de Jean Charles Band of the BCCM, call Chief Albert Naquin at
[phone].
Grand Caillou/Dulac Band of the BCCM, call Chairwoman Marlene Foret
at [phone].
Bayou Lafourche Chief Band of the BCCM, call Chief Randy Verdun at
225-485-8765.
For all three bands of the BCCM, call Secretary Sharon LeBouef at
[phone].
Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, call Chairman Charles Verdin at (985)
856-5336.
Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe, call Second Chair Donald Dardar at
[phone].
Four Directions Relief Project, call Naomi Archer, Coordinator, at
828.230.1404.
###
See also:
www.eswn.org

[Okwes]

In Louisiana, a Sinking Island Wars With Water and the Government
By Dan Barry
The New York Times

Monday 19 June 2006

www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061906G.shtml

June 19, 2006 | A flag with the image of a Native American flew above a home on Isle de Jean Charles, an island at the bayou bottom of Louisiana, about 30 miles south of US Highway 90. After Hurricane Katrina, the government concluded that it is not worthwhile to protect the island and its 250 residents, whose families have lived there for generations and many of whom belong to the small band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha.

(Photo: Nicole Begivene / The New York Times)

www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/3.070306BL1_sm.jpg

Isle De Jean Charles, La.- All trees and farmland, the tribal chief said. With hard acres of green where cattle grazed, adults trapped game, and boys and girls of the Biloxi-Chitimacha tribe ran without even dampening their feet. You should have seen it.

But you can hardly imagine it, much less see it, because where gardens sprouted and children sprinted just 30 years ago, there is now a grass skirt of mushy marshland, and beyond, the rippling open waters that lead to the Gulf of Mexico.

"Water," the tribe's conflicted chief, Albert Naquin, said. "All water."

Think of a ship with expansive decks and a close-knit crew. Now think of that ship surrendering slowly to the ocean, leaving its crew clinging to an ever-sinking bow. The ship is this island, here at the bayou bottom of Louisiana, about 30 miles south of U.S. Highway 90. And its crew members are the island's inhabitants, the small band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha, related to the Choctaws and part of a larger confederation of Muskogees.

For natural and manufactured reasons, 30 square miles of South Louisiana wetlands vanish every year into the Gulf. People here say they lose a football field every 20 minutes, every half-hour, every hour - the estimates vary, but the panic is constant, partly because wetlands and barrier islands act as hurricane buffers for the vulnerable mainland.

The unnerving sense of "look away, lose an inch" is especially keen here on the very poor, very mucky and thoroughly exposed Isle de Jean Charles, which almost dutifully received six feet of water during Hurricane Rita last September. But the advancing waters rubbing away a culture have a partner, tribal members say: the government.

To reach the island, you take a narrow road that was raised several years ago but which has sunk so much since that cars seem to skim the lapping waters. As you drive, you leave behind the initial stage of a 72-mile levee system called the Morganza to the Gulf of Mexico Hurricane Protection Project.

The operative word here: behind.

This $887 million project of the Army Corps of Engineers, long-planned and still awaiting full Congressional authorization, is designed to stem the wetlands' erosion in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes caused by natural subsidence, the rerouting of the Mississippi River and, some say, global warming.

"The system will provide hurricane protection to over 90 percent of the residents," said Jerome Zeringue, the director of the Terrebonne Levee and Conservation District. "There are a few people left out, unfortunately."

Most of those few left out are the Biloxi-Chitimacha on Isle de Jean Charles.

"We did originally try to put them in there," Mr. Zeringue said. "The problem is, based on the cost-benefit ratio, it would cost too much to include that sliver of land. For the cost, you could buy the island and all the residents tenfold."

In effect, the government had to ask itself: is it worth $100 million or more to protect a shrinking spit of an island, its only road, its modest homes, some of them little more than shacks, and its 250 residents, whose families have lived here for generations? Its conclusion: no.

"Even in a high tide, with strong southeast winds, these people have water in their yards," Mr. Zeringue said. He emphasized that the decision was not made lightly.

A few years ago, the island's residents rejected a proposal to be relocated somewhere within the Morganza skirt. Since then, water and mortality have continued to creep, leaving some of the younger members to question the point of it all.

Not that many of them trust the government. Residents float conspiracies about greedy land speculators and oil interests craving the liquid gold that may lie beneath. Their distrust runs deep in the softening soil; they don't have to think too far back to remember a time when they could neither pray nor learn beside white people.

Mr. Naquin, the tribal chief, solid as a piling, rode down that only island road, where the local surnames of Naquin, Billiot and Dardar date to the mid-1800's; where patchwork wooden walkways twist over an ever-widening bayou; and where some abandoned houses look as if they had exploded.

Do not immediately blame last year's Hurricane Rita for the damage; it might have been Hurricane Lili, in 2002, or Tropical Storm Bill, in 2003. But each storm accelerates the inevitable fate.

Several children frolicked in the bayou muck outside a small house, while their grandfather, Philip Brunet, watched in the melting heat. At 61, he has "caught" two heart attacks, as he put it, ending his career as a welder and signaling that the time had come to leave where he has lived all his life.

"We're moving, me and my wife," Mr. Brunet told his old friend, the chief. "We're going to take off when the hurricanes come and go someplace high. No more mud to clean."

The chief said goodbye - "I love y'all," Mr. Brunet called after him, in affecting Cajun English - and moved down the road. He passed the old cemetery, spongy and unused since the 1940's; the mounds of empty Milwaukee's Best beer cans that glitter outside a tilting shack; and the sinking property of his older sister, Denecia Billiot, and her husband, Wenceslaus.

The Billiots raised seven children, all of whom have moved off the island. Now they live alone in a house placed on stilts after Lili. When they look out their back window, they see deep blue water where corn grew and their children played.

They sit on the porch, Mr. Billiot wearing a red Army cap that hints of his South Pacific tour during World War II, Mrs. Billiot killing sand flies with a pink swatter. "I'm not going nowhere," she said. "I was born here. I got 81 already." Years on the island, that is.

The chief passed other houses, naming residents both here and gone: shrimpers and welders and riggers and loafers. He pointed out where Lover's Lane used to be, where a dance hall used to beckon, where groves of trees used to flourish before the salt water withered them dry.

Even the chief doesn't live on Isle de Jean Charles anymore. The only road leading to the island kept flooding, he said, and he could not afford to lose his off-island job in the petroleum industry. He moved 30 years ago from an island house that still stands, an empty hull, vacant since Hurricane Lili.

He came to the end of the island road, to the spot where he and his many siblings grew up, including Gustave, who died in a tugboat accident; Simon, who died in the Vietnam War; and Deme, the tribal chief before him, and now an elder.

Mr. Naquin is nearly 60, and his tribal burdens line his face.

He fears that if he sues the federal government for leaving the island outside the levees, he will jeopardize his tribe's application for federal recognition. He fears that if he does nothing, his tribe may not survive the next colossal hurricane.

Even his preferred option - the government builds homes on the mainland for tribal members, but allows members to move off the island when they feel ready - could mean the loss of connection to the land, the loss of cultural ways, the loss of continuity.

"It is terrible for me," the chief of the Biloxi-Chitimacha said, as another sun set on the encroaching waters. "I thought I could change the world, but the world is changing me."