Two years after the most destructive hurricanes in history, Louisiana is progressing more than ever before. People who travel across the southern part regularly say the cities along the coast are booming.
Lafayette, it seems, is one of the most prosperous towns in America. The highway between New Iberia and Lafayette is chock full of businesses. There’s no doubt that Houma and Morgan City are growing at fast paces.
Fourchon at the bottom of Bayou Lafourche is unbelievable. It has turned into the major offshore oil production port along the Gulf Coast. The only trouble is, there is no place to live there. Most of the workers have to commute from up the bayou.
St. Charles and other parishes along the Mississippi River are prospering with plants expanding and new businesses coming in. And New Orleans is recovering very well. In the next couple months, the Big Easy will be quite busy hosting the Sugar Bowl, BCS championship game and the NBA all star game plus horse race derbies and conventions. Tourism should flourish there in the years ahead.
Look around you. There are riches everywhere. Louisiana has more natural resources than any of the 48 contiguous states.
First there is oil and gas. Louisiana is the number one producer in those states onshore and offshore.
And our fisheries abound. Our coastal estuaries are the birthplace of more than half the commercial fish caught in those same states.
But don’t stop there. We have the greatest river in the country. It leads to and from big productive and consumer areas throughout Latin America. And it’s an easy float across the great oceans that connect to every other continent in the world.
Add to those natural resources the industries that benefit from them like petrochemical giants that take advantage of petroleum produced, the shipping industry that transports and loads the freight and the factories that process the fish and prepare them for the market.
With all of those advantages, how can Louisiana be one of the poorest states in the union? We doubt that it is but that is the impression nationwide.
Yes, 2007 has been a very good year even though parts of the state are still reconstructing. To continue this progress, we must put more emphasis on saving and restoring the coast which has been washing away into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of 45 square miles a year. At our present rate of loss, our progress will all be for naught. And we have so much to lose.
Our new governor will have a challenge to organize the forces that can reverse the tides. It should be his main objective in 2008 and the years beyond.
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