As
Louisiana's Isle de Jean Charles slips away, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw
tribe plans community renewal and a museum for their new home
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The
residents and tribal members of Isle de Jean Charles are the
first federally-funded community to be moved because of environmental
degradation and displacement. (Coco Robicheaux / Alamy Stock
Photo)
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"We are displaced.
Our once large oak trees are now ghosts. The island that provided
refuge and prosperity is now just a frail skeleton," says Chantel
Comardelle, tribal secretary of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw, as
we sit in one of the few houses left on the Louisiana Gulf Coast
island, which has shrunk from 34.5 square miles to half a square
mile. Out front a stagnant canal festers, obstructed by a recent
levee built by the Army Corps of Engineers to protect the remainder
of the island.
The community of Isle
de Jean Charles understands and widely accepts that climate change
is affecting them. "The weather patterns are changing; storms are
much more frequent" Comardelle says. "People really started leaving
in the 1960s. In the 1980s and 1990s, following storms like Juan
and Hurricane Andrew, a lot of people left. Their houses got blown
awaytorn up, or floodedcompletely gone, some of them.
Many didn't want to put money in and then a couple years later have
to do the same." Her father, deputy chief Wenceslaus Billiot Jr
adds: "Every hurricane, someone leaves because their house gets
blown away." Right now, 95 percent of the tribal community no longer
lives on the Isle.
The residents and tribal
members are now the first federally-funded community to be moved
because of environmental degradation and displacement. In 2016,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) awarded a
$48.3 million grant through Louisiana's Office of Community Development-Disaster
Recovery Unit (OCD-DRU) to fund the relocation of the Isle de Jean
Charles band of the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe. Following a
two year search and negotiation some 500 acres of former sugarcane
land was purchased for nearly $12 million near Schriever in southern
Louisiana. Development is slated for 2019.
In anticipation of the
move and amidst plans for relocation late last year, a tribal delegation
arrived at the Smithsonian Institution to view the cultural heritage
collections related to their tribe and to their history and that
have been held for decades at the National Museum of Natural History
and the National Museum of the American Indian. As part of the Recovering
Voices initiative to recover cultural knowledge, the delegation
examined museum artifacts and was asked to contribute memories and
recollections.
"We had four generations
there," Comardelle says, "my kids traveled up with us, seeing this
dugout canoe from our ancestors. With all the storms and such, we've
lost a lot of things, including pictures. So, to see something of
that magnitude that was preserved there, that was just amazing."
"I would never have imagined
they had so much stuff," Billiot says. "They had some artifacts
that they didn't know what they were. We showed them what they were
and how they worked. They had a little device for hooking up the
Spanish moss and spinning it into rope, and they didn't know what
that was for. There was a pirogue from the early 1800sdugoutthat
was from here."
"We often talk about
displacement of our tribe here, but as a whole tribe, we are displaced
from our parent tribes," says Comardelle. "And that was evident
seeing the artifacts. They had baskets like ones from the Choctaw
tribe of Alabama. Same weave pattern. And the games, we had similar
games, we just didn't have the same materials. For a tribe like
us having to go back and find things and put pieces together, being
able to sit in the collections and see baskets from the Choctaws
that you know the pattern and know how they're made; and clothing
of the Biloxis that are similar to ours; it proves that we do have
this history, and it helps to put those pieces back together and
confirm that history."
Picking Up the
Pieces
Putting the pieces back
together again was important to state officials, too. According
to Jessica Simms of the OCD-DRU, the state of Louisiana wanted to
make sure that all Isle residents would be settled in a location
that was suitable to their socioeconomic and cultural values and
that former Island residents could rejoin the community in its new
location. "Many of whom," she says, "were displaced over time following
repetitive disaster events." According to elderly residents on the
island, Isle de Jean Charles was once home to as many as 750 people,
occupying 70 homes arranged on both sides of the bayou in a line
village pattern. Now only 20 or so families remain.
Louisiana is said to
be home to more American Indian tribes than any other southern state.
There are four federally recognized tribes, ten tribes recognized
by the state of Louisiana, and four tribes without official status.
Located in Terrebonne Parish, the Isle de Jean Charles tribe is
one of three ancestrally related but independent tribes of what
was, until recently, the Biloxi-Chitimacha Confederation of Muskogees.
This is traditionally Chitimacha country, and scholars estimate
that in 1650, there were 4,000 Chitimacha Indians. Up through the
20th century, 13 to 15 names of their many villages could be recalled
and their sites identified.
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"We
had four generations there," says Chantel Comardelle (above
center) of the trip to the Smithsonian. From left to right:
curator Gwyneira Isaac, Chantel Comardelle, Wenceslaus Billiot,
Jr, Chief Albert Naquin. (Recovering Voices, Smithsonian Institution)
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But there was a lot of
movement of Louisiana tribes when the French and Indian war ended
in 1764. And even more with the Indian Removal Act. The Biloxis
had already been well traveled and knew the channels and ridges
of the area. Some Biloxi and Choctaw Indians, fleeing the Trail
of Tears, sought refuge first in the Houma area north of the Isle,
then further down in the remote marshes of the Mississippi delta.
There they commingled with the Chitimacha, hoping American authorities
would not find them and force them onto reservations in Oklahoma.
The language is mostly a mix of Choctaw with French, and Comardelle's
father and grandmother speak to each other in these soft Cajun tones.
An Island for
Trade, Art and Oil
The Isle was once accessible
only by small dugout canoes, or pirogues. Later the canal was made
bigger so boats could navigate the area. "When the great depression
happened, people on the Isle didn't even know it was happening,"
recalls Billiot. "People on the Isle lived by tradefishing,
making furniture, building houses, on up into the 1940s. The community
took care of itself. We had three stores on the island when I was
growing up. The land provided blackberries. Once a year we would
have a big party where we killed a pig for the community. We raised
our own chickens, cows."
Palmetto basketsmade
from the heart of the young palmetto before it starts flaring upbecame
an art form.
Then the oil fields came
in and started making canals to bring in more rigs. In 1953 a road
was built to access the oil tanks. Salt water seeped into the canals.
"When I was growing up, it was mostly brackish water, lots of fresh
water," Comardelle recalls. "I was told these were rice fields,
but you wouldn't know because now it's just water over there." The
road accessing the Isle from the mainland used to have land on either
side. Now it's all water, and that water all too often flows over
the road itself.
The Fragility
of an Ecosystem
"The top few meters of
land consists of mostly organic matter, made up of plants and rootsa
biological system," explains R. Eugene Turner of the department
of oceanography and coastal sciences at Louisiana State University.
"When it dries out, the soil oxidizes and turns to CO2. And the
land sinks."
The ecosystem depended
on the growth of plants and the production of organic matter to
produce the soil. The tides are only 6 to 12 inches during the day,
a bit higher in summer, but this provided enough water to keep the
plants surviving. The problem, according to Turner, stems from the
dredging of canals through this land by the oil industry, which
began early in the 20th century and accelerated after 1940. The
canals are dredged much deeper than a natural channel12 to
15 feet versus a foot or twoand then the materials dredged
are piled on either side to build a levee called a spoil bank, which
can be up to ten feet high. It doesn't let water in that often,
and when it does, it doesn't get out as easily.
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"Every
hurricane, someone leaves because their house gets blown away,"
says deputy chief Wenceslaus Billiot, Jr. Right now, 95 percent
of the tribal community no longer lives on the Isle. (Doug
Herman)
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"The total length of
these spoil banks is enough to cross south Louisiana 80 timesor
to go to London and back with miles left over," Turner says. "These
'spoil banks' really interfere with the natural flow of water. They
are higher than the water would ever go, except in a hurricane."
The land behind them does not get the water it needs, so the plants
die, and as the organic soil dissolves into CO2, the land sinks.
"Where there are more canals, there's more land loss; where there
are less canals, there's less land loss, so these are correlated,"
Turner points out.
When the plants can't
grow, they can't add to the land, and what's down there turns to
CO2. "It depends on always growing on top," Turner says. "Add sea
level rise to this subsidence and it's going to turn to open water.
Sea level rise is going to start a whole new chapter of land loss."
What It Took
to Get to 100 Percent Buy-In
"Back then, a hurricane
hit, we'd get a foot of water on the land here," Billiot states.
"Now, if there's a hurricane in Texas, we get seven or eight feet
of water here. There's no more land, no buffers, no barrier islands
to stop the surge. Not just from the canal digging, but hurricanes,
and subsidence. And sea level rise. There are some docks that in
the 1970s were two feet above the water. Now they're under water
and they had to build a new dock above it."
Oil companies were the
bread and butter of the economy. "You couldn't fight them," say
Billiot, "because everything is oil over here, it would be a losing
battle. On the other side, most of the people down here work in
the oil field, so it's a double-edged sword."
The Tribal Community
began discussions about relocating Isle residents in 1999. That
year, the Corps of Engineers changed the path of the levee so that
it no longer protected the remaining homes. In 2002, community members
began working with the Corps to relocate the Isle's residents, but
the Corps would not move them individually, only as a community;
only if there was 100 percent buy-in. "How often do you get 100
percent?" Billiot muses. Leaders managed to get about 90 percent
of the residents to agree, but it was not enough.
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Looking
at a pestle made of cypress held in the Smithsonian collections,
deputy chief Wenceslaus Billiot Jr later commented: "I would
never have imagined they had so much stuff." (Recovering Voices,
Smithsonian Institution)
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In 2008, after Hurricanes
Gustav and Ike, the Tribal Community tried again to seek funding
and relocate tribal members from the Isle, and found a place that
seemed like it would do the job. They had support from the local
government and some other funders and backers, but the people from
the area they were looking to move to protested, saying their presence
there would cause more flooding. "We were Indian and they were white,"
Comardelle says. "The chief got up, gave his introduction, and was
told 'Your time's up, please sit down.'"
But this effort, like
the first one, required 100 percent buy-in, and not everyone was
on board.
Planning for
a Better Future
"We kept looking for
ways to help our tribe, which led to continued planning," says Comardelle.
"The Tribal leaders aligned us with some non-profits, who said they
could help. At the time, the planning was not specific, just planning
for a better future. The planning was for a place where the tribal
community to live and not deal with environmental issues every other
moment. The Isle of Jean Charles community planned with visions
and dreams of a future getting back to the way life on the Isle
used to be, when our community was fruitful and not just a ghost
if itself."
The planning process
eventually lead to a meeting with the Louisiana Department of Community
Development. Several Tribal communities were present to discuss
applying for the initial phase of a National Disaster Resilience
Competition grant. In 2016, HUD made $48.7 million available to
relocate the Isle's residents.
"They were one of 67
entities in the USA that could apply and win," says Pat Forbes,
executive director of the Louisiana Office of Community Development.
"We are HUD's grantees for this project, so we administer the grant
in compliance with them. The task is to move a community from an
at-risk place to a lower-risk place where they can be high and dry
for a long time. And to do that in such a way that can demonstrate
lessons learned and best practices as we go through it, so we will
be better at it the next time we try."
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The
tides brought in 6 to 12 inches during the day, a bit higher
in summer. This provided enough water for the plants to survive.
Dredging of canals began early in the 20th century and accelerated
after 1940. (Doug Herman)
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"We were familiar with
the tribe's previous effort to move," Forbes adds, "so we engaged
with them and they participated with us as we wrote the application.
Now our role is to ensure that we bring the project to fruition,
meaning getting everyone in this community who wants to go, moved
from the Isle. They could be moving to this new location, or somewhere
else. We want to lay the groundwork for a model of how to do this
in the future."
The model for future
communities is being developed while navigating a complicated process.
"After HUD awarded the grant, the State's first step was to conduct
a census of the Isle's residents," says Simms of the OCD-DRU, "and
document existing infrastructure on the Isle. Through this initial
effort, the State began forming vital relationships with the Isle's
residents and its broader community.
The residents determined
they wanted to be further up away from the coast. But it was difficult
to balance the desire to live a safe distance from the water with
the need for proximity so that they could continue their traditional
trades. Several possible locales were considered, but residents
wanted to live on higher ground. Then they sought potentially available
tracks of land that would be suitable, given everything they wanted
to do. "Island residents submitted preference surveys," Simms explains,
"indicating which site they preferred. The site we are under option
on was the one that residents ultimately indicated they wanted to
move to."
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According
to elderly residents on the island, Isle de Jean Charles was
once home to as many as 750 people, occupying 70 homes arranged
on both sides of the bayou in a line village pattern. Now
only 20 or so families remain. (Doug Herman)
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Higher Ground
The State purchased a
binding option on land that had been used for sugarcane fields north
of Houma, but can't commit HUD funds until after an environmental
review. The new land is 12 feet above sea level.
"It's north of Highway
90," Comardelle says, "where they say everyone should be, based
on a 100-year map projection of coastal flooding and sea level rise.
It has good drainage, and it's safe for future development."
The new community would
initially involve resettlement of current Island residents. But
the intention, and the expectation, is that tribal descendants of
Isle de Jean Charles could also return to the new site. "It needs
to grow back into a robust community," Forbes says. "While we might
move 45 to 50 families from the Island, we need to build an infrastructure
that can take 150 to 200 homes. They'll use HUD standards, so there
aren't necessarily extended families living in one house like they
are now. Lots of folks on the Island are currently living in substandard
housing."
"Lots of resettlements
actually displace tribes," Comardelle explains. "We're being displaced
by the environmental changes and things happening inside our community.
When we get to the resettlement, it will actually bring the tribe
back together. People who left can come back to the community. You'll
be able to walk next door and it will be your aunts and your cousins,
like it used to be. And then we can get our culture back. Kids can
learn how to weave baskets, make cast nets, build boats. And we'll
have our community back to where it is self-sustaining again: if
someone was sick, the neighbors of other members of the community
would cook and feed them. But now they might be 45 minutes away.
We'll be all close to each other again."
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A
large white cross marks the location of where residents of
the Isle de Jean Charles believe their cemetery is located,
following the damages of multiple hurricanes over the past
few decades. (Doug Herman)
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Weaving Together
a Community
Comardelle is now planning
a tribal museum and has acquired a museum studies degree to learn
about collecting. "We want a part where we show our history, but
we also want an interactive part where we teach our history. Here's
how you weave a basket. Not just for us, but for the outside community.
The museum on the resettlement plan is not just a building, but
a heart pumping and circulating our past into the present and on
to the future."
"We can demonstrate how
to make a pirogue," Billiot adds. "I have a blueprint for it. I
created it in AutoCAD."
"We have only a few things
for the collections," Comardelle remarks. "Right now, we can't collect
because we have no place to put things. So, we're looking at how
we can start a digital archive. A lot of people still have old pictures;
we want to be able to scan them so not only do we have them, but
the people themselves can get prints back from us if the originals
are lost. We can have an archive for private use and also to show
the outside communitywith permission."
The connections made
are the cultural detail being brought into the second phase of master
planning with the State to ensure the new community retains the
Tribe's cultural identity. The community collaboration and multi-agency
interaction is a component of the master planning process that aids
in producing a model for all communities across the coastal region.
"We've proven that you
can take and adapt to whatever land you're in, and still retain
your culture and your identity, Comardelle adds. "I have no doubt
that we will be able to do that here."
The writing is on the
wall not just for this tribe, but for other Louisiana tribes. As
early as 1987, scholars sounded a warning: "Today, the decline in
Louisiana's Indian population is matched by the deterioration and
outright destruction of the state's once magnificent natural environments.
Many tribes have disappeared; the rest are decimated. The likelihood
of their eventual demise is strengthened by environmental ruin.
The problem is one for all Louisianans. Irreparable ecological damage
can be tolerated no longer, and the Indian, like his neighbors,
have begun to demand protection."
Now that demand has manifested
into action. "We understand the ramifications of our work, relative
to others who are going to be going through this," Forbes points
out. "So, there's the importance of getting it right and learning
from it, so other people can learn from our experiences and do it
better than we have on the first pass. It's so new; it's going to
be a constantly improving approach.
"Nobody is really dying
to leave the place where they grew up, and where they live and own
property. Every resettlement project is going to face this," he
says. "Louisiana is going faster than anywhere else in the USA,
between sea level rise and ground subsidence making for a higher,
relative sea level rise. So, we are the vanguard of this experience."
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