Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana

House in Isle de Jean Charles after Hurricane Gustav in 2008.

Isle de Jean Charles (known locally in Louisiana French as Isle à Jean Charles) is a narrow ridge of land situated in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana. For over 170 years it has been the historical homeland and burial ground of the state-recognized tribe of the Isle de Jean Charles Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians.^[1] Residents of the Island have long been threatened by Louisiana's coastal erosion (coastal Louisiana loses a landmass the size of Manhattan every year). The Island, which consisted of over 22,000 acres of land in 1955, has lost about 98% of its land since due to saltwater intrusion, subsidence, and sea level rise.^[2] In January 2016, the state of Louisiana received substantial funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund the tribe's resettlement to safer ground.^[3][4]

Background

The tribe's ancestors moved to Isle de Jean Charles to escape consequences of the Indian Removal Act in the 1830s. They traditionally lived through fishing and subsistence farming, both of which have become more difficult following environmental degradation and erosion of coastal areas.

The island and its semi-abandoned village are located in eroding wetlands beyond the main levee systems of south Louisiana. The oil drilling, logging and the Army Corps of Engineers’ levee building on the Mississippi River have contributed to erosion of the wetlands, threatened also by sea level rise and intense hurricanes such as Katrina in 2005.^[5] In the 1950s, the island was 11 miles long and five miles wide. In 2016, it has been reduced to a quarter-mile wide and two miles long, and the causeway to it is also threatened. Today, only 25 families remain on the island, with many tribal members displaced.

Recent coastal restoration measures have not been able to salvage the island. This Tribal Homeland was not included within the Louisiana State Master Plan nor Morganza to the Gulf 72-mile authorized levee alignment, currently under construction for the Mexico Hurricane Protection Project.

Community Resettlement Efforts

Without government support to mitigate the flooding and restore the land, the Isle de Jean Charles Tribal Council decided that they would like relocation assistance for their people, but only as a community. Traditional Chief Albert Naquin and the Tribal Council have seen significant progress towards community resettlement throughout their nearly 20 years of working within the community, developing plans, building partnerships, and conducting outreach. There have also been multiple disappointing setbacks.

In 2002, the US Army Corps of Engineers worked with them to identify a site nearby where the community could rebuild. The USACE hired architects for the relocation proposal, with the idea of maintaining a cohesive community to be consistent with the tribe’s federal recognition process. But when it came time to vote, the majority of people from Isle de Jean Charles did not want to relocate. The USACE had counted non-residents and members of another tribe in the vote, causing confusion about the Isle de Jean Charles’ community goals. Some residents felt that the government wanted residents to relocate so the oil industry could have free range over the area without interference. Individuals from the tribe grew up either with the experiences themselves or with the stories of multinational oil and gas corporations and land developers coming in and taking their tribal and family land. The USACE representatives and others involved failed to recognize the sensitive nature of government representatives raising ideas about relocating a tribal community and did not have the local knowledge of internal and intertribal politics, which resulted in counting people from another tribe in the vote to relocate. The USACE said that, if the community could find an appropriate ridge to build on, they would reconsider including the community in the hurricane protection system. However the USACE’s representatives did not listen to elders on the Island about where to take soil samples, maintaining instead that the cost-benefit ratio was not there to include the community in the levee system. The cost-benefit analysis used to make coastal restoration decisions did not account for the distribution of costs and benefits or important social and cultural factors, such as people’s identity, beliefs, traditions, livelihoods and sacred places. It did not include the social, psychological, and financial costs associated with moving fishing families inland, loss of local knowledge, and the mental stress of being removed from one’s home and traditional life.

In 2008, making another attempt at relocation, the Tribe experienced NIMBYism while planning their move. Residents near the potential new home held concerns about property values decreasing that resembled the fears that led to white flight throughout the United States since the 1950s. As studies have shown, new residents do not decrease property values upon their arrival, but property values decrease as wealthier residents leave.^[6] As the restoration process became an object of commodification and racial tension throughout these setbacks, the residents became further displaced, estranged and alienated from the physical environment and denied the input of their local knowledge, which could be an invaluable contribution to the restoration process.^[7]

Since 2010 the Isle de Jean Charles community have worked with longtime partners at The Lowlander Center and a team of experts in hazard mitigation, climate adaptation, community planning, architecture, and other relevant fields, to develop their own plans for resettlement guided by local knowledge, the tribe's values, and with the hope of providing a model for other communities threatened by coastal erosion. Finally, on January 21, 2016, the State of Louisiana received $52 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to put towards the Isle de Jean Charles resettlement, as part of the National Disaster Resilience Competition (NDRC). The Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement Project was adopted by the state with minimal changes as a component in their application to the NDRC, giving the community renewed hope that the long overdue community-led and locally informed process of resettlement is finally underway.^[8]

Representation in other media

• Director Benh Zeitlin of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) said in interviews that Isle de Jean Charles was the geographic inspiration for the setting of "The Bathtub," the fictional island portrayed in his film.
• Cottage Films filmed tribal life for years on Isle de Jean Charles for a documentary film called Can't Stop The Water (2013), directed by Rebecca and Jason Ferris and now on tour.^[9]

References

External links

• Isle de Jean Charles band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw
• Isle de Jean Charles Resettlement Project
• Barry, Dan (June 19, 2006). In Louisiana, a Sinking Island Wars With Water and the Government. New York Times
• Isle de Jean Charles, LA via New Deal Network Photo Gallery
• "Last Stand on the Island", a short film about the inhabitants of Isle de Jean Charles
• "Vanishing Island", NYTimes short film
• Video.NationalGeographic.com Staying Afloat On A Drowning Island

Coordinates: 29°23′16″N 90°28′59″W / 29.387709°N 90.483055°W / 29.387709; -90.483055