In the News
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The news outlet links below represent many viewpoints, aggregated here for reference purposes only. The Louisiana Office of Community Development makes no claim as to the veracity or accuracy of any views contained herein.
If you are a member of the media, please contact Marvin McGraw and indicate your name, news outlet, contact information and deadline.
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Marvin McGraw
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On a sinking Louisiana island, many aren’t ready to leaveSource: Los Angeles Times Date: 04/23/2019 This island will cease to exist. That much seems certain. |
The Feds are spending $48 million to move his village. But he doesn't want to go.Source: CNN Date: 04/02/2019 Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana (CNN) -- The plans are grand -- a brand new community with homes, baseball fields, fishing ponds, a meeting hall and a solar farm to generate electricity to sell. |
State of La Selects Site for Isle De Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 03/20/2019 Residents of the environmentally at-risk Isle de Jean Charles are a step closer to a resilient and historically contextual resettlement community. The Louisiana Office of Community Development is starting the process of purchasing a 515-acre tract of high ground near Schriever in northern Terrebonne Parish for $11.7 million. Today’s... |
98% of this Louisiana community has disappearedSource: YouTube Date: 02/12/2019 CNN's Bill Weir went to Isle de Jean Charles on the Louisiana coast as residents grapple with moving their community inland as water levels surrounding the island continue to rise. |
The Feds are spending $48 million to move his village. But he doesn't want to go.Source: CNN Date: 02/12/2019 The plans are grand -- a brand new community with homes, baseball fields, fishing ponds, a meeting hall and a solar farm to generate electricity to sell. |
State closes purchase of land for Isle de Jean Charles climate refugeesSource: The Advocate Date: 01/10/2019 The state has closed on the $11.7 million purchase of a 515-acre tract of land near Thibodaux that will be the new home of the current residents of Isle de Jean Charles, whose narrow strip of land is under threat from the rising Gulf of Mexico. |
State of Louisiana Buys Land for Isle De Jean Charles ResettlementDate: 01/09/2019 The Louisiana Land Trust on behalf of the Office of Community Development is purchasing 515 acres of farmland in the Schriever area of Terrebonne Parish to serve as the resettlement site for the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. The $11.7 million purchase continues the resettlement of the residents from their island community in lower Terrebonne... |
Confronting the Costs of Coastal Land LossSource: Route Fifty Date: 11/08/2018 The Louisiana coast is disappearing, acres of land eroding away every day. It’s a well known fact, which for years has prompted commissions, studies and development of new infrastructure to rechannel Mississippi River sediment back into the wetlands where it is needed. |
Don't Label Them Climate Change Refugees, Says a Louisiana Planner, They're PioneersSource: Common Edge Date: 08/23/2018 In Louisiana, real estate is a commodity. According to the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, more than 1,900 square miles have been lost since the 1930s, and an additional 4,120 square miles could be lost over the next 50 years. |
Prospects Are Looking Up for This Gulf Coast Tribe Relocating to Higher GroundSource: Smithsonian Magazine Date: 08/09/2018 As Louisiana’s Isle de Jean Charles slips away, the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw tribe plans community renewal and a museum for their new home. |
'Climate refugees': Gulf Coast isle becomes test case with push to relocate residentsSource: The Washington Times Date: 06/05/2018 |
Louisiana's Managed Retreat: Isle de Jean CharlesSource: Smarter Communities Media Date: 05/08/2018 |
forced to move: climate change already displacing u.s. communitiesSource: Link TV Date: 04/26/2018 The role of climate change in human displacement and migration is being cited by experts as the number one global threat of the 21st century. |
Louisiana 'islanders' find a new home beyond the waterSource: Thomson Reuters Foundation News Date: 04/21/2018 Standing in the long grass on the land where he was born, with the sea now lapping just meters away, Chief Albert Naquin remembers Isle de Jean Charles as a wonderful place to grow up. |
america's first climate change refugees are preparing to leave an island that will disappear under the sea in the next few yearsSource: The Independent Date: 04/01/2018 ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, Louisiana -- America comes to an end here. |
Shrinking island in Louisiana forcing residents to moveSource: New York Post Date: 03/21/2018 NEW ORLEANS — The effects of global warming can be seen and touched in Louisiana, where officials have begun buying higher ground to relocate an entire town in a bayou being swallowed by higher seas. |
the perils of climate migration: a cautionary tale from louisianaSource: Climate Liability News Date: 03/21/2018 Once a sprawling island, Isle de Jean Charles today is a mere sliver of what it used to be, more than 98 percent of its land has been swept into the Gulf of Mexico over the past 60 years by an increase in severe storms and rising seas. It's why the tiny community was awarded the first-of-its-kind $48.3 million federal grant in 2016 to resettle... |
State is buying Isle de Jean Charles relocation site for $11.7 millionSource: The Times Picayune Date: 03/20/2018 |
on the louisiana coast, a native community sinks slowly into the seaSource: Yale Environment 360 Date: 03/15/2018 The Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw Indians of southern Louisiana have been called America's first climate refugees. But two years after receiving federal funding to move to higher ground, the tribe is stuck in limbo, waiting for new homes as the water inches closer to their doors. |
Climate change threatens to wash away couple’s historySource: CNN Date: 03/02/2018 Seventy years ago, on the day Wenceslaus and Denicia Billiot got married, their wedding party danced along a road that ran from one end of Isle de Jean Charles to the other. |
Left To Louisiana’s Tides, A Village Fights For TimeSource: New York Times Date: 02/24/2018 JEAN LAFITTE, LA. — From a Cessna flying 4,000 feet above Louisiana’s coast, what strikes you first is how much is already lost. |
Sense of Urgency Surrounds Isle de Jean Charles RelocationSource: Houma Today Date: 01/07/2018 As negotiations take place for a relocation site for residents and former residents of Isle de Jean Charles, there's concern about this year's hurricane season. |
state chooses site near thibodaux to relocate isle de jean charles climate refugeesSource: The Advocate Date: 12/21/2017 After nearly two years of deliberations, the state has entered negotiations to purchase a 515-acre sugar cane farm near Thibodaux where officials hope to resettle the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, an island in south Terrebonne Parish that is quickly sinking under rising seas. |
here's where residents of sinking isle de jean charles will relocateSource: Nola.com Date: 12/19/2017 A sugar farm outside Houma has been selected as the new home for the dozens of people remaining on Isle de Jean Charles, an island rapidly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico. An experimental program aimed at transplating the small, mostly Native American community to safer ground has zeroed in on a 515-acre farm about 40 miles north of the island in... |
beyond the beltway: louisiana isle home to the first us climate refugeesSource: CGTN Date: 11/30/2017 The world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is expected to walk away from the Paris Climate Accord. How will U.S. President Trump's decision affect the world and the people in his own country? |
those who remain on this island in louisiana's bayou are barely clinging to what's leftSource: Public Radio East Date: 11/23/2017 Since the middle of the last century more than 90 percent of Isle de Jean Charles has dissolved into the southern Louisiana bayou. The state predicts sea level rise and rampant coastal erosion will make the island unlivable in the coming years. |
saving coastal communities requires a community-based approachSource: Brink News Date: 10/31/2017 Hurricanes Harvey and Irma exposed how vulnerable our communities are to extreme climate events. With the two storms destroying thousands of houses and causing well over $200 billion worth of losses, questions have been raised, particularly about how we don't seem to be doing enough to move homes out of harm's way. |
CSRS to design new community for first U.S. 'climate refugees'Source: Business Report Date: 09/25/2017 State officials have selected Baton Rouge-based CSRS Inc. to design a new community for residents of Isle de Jean Charles, who last year became the first "climate refugees" in the U.S. |
State Names CSRS Inc. as Master Planner to Oversee Design of Isle De Jean Charles Resettlement CommunityDate: 09/25/2017 Next Phase of High-Profile Resilient Community Plan Begins Now Louisiana’s Office of Community Development is announcing that CSRS Inc. will serve as the master planner to design a new community for the residents of Isle de Jean Charles. The firm won a competitive proposal process as part of a project that continues to garner attention as... |
Let's Beat ItSource: Landscape Architecture Magazine Date: 09/19/2017 In Southern Louisiana, Evans + Lighter Landscape Architecture is helping the people of Isle de Jean Charles move away from a disappearing coast. |
Sites for Relocating island residents narrowed to threeSource: DailyComet.com Date: 07/11/2017 Isle de Jean Charles residents and state officials have narrowed possible relocation sites for the community to three in the Schriever area. |
As This Town Slips into Sea, a $48 Million Rescue Runs into ObstaclesSource: Climate Changed Date: 07/03/2017 There was a fight coming and everyone knew it, so the reverend asked his guests to start with a prayer. "Dear Lord, here we gather to consider ways and means that we might be relocated," began Roch Naquin, who lives in Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana a town slipping into the sea and the site of a radical federal policy experiment. |
First US climate change refugees prepare to relocate in louisianaSource: Herald Sun Date: 06/12/2017 Rising sea levels attributed to climate change is forcing a whole American town to relocate, and many others may soon have to follow. In January the US Government announced it would spend $63 million to help residents of Isle de Jean Charles in the southern state of Louisiana to move from their homes as coastal erosion threatens to sink the entire... |
An Island in Louisiana's Bayou is Vanishing; And its residents are fleeing to higher groundSource: Here & Now Date: 06/05/2017 Since the middle of the last century more than 90 percent of Isle de Jean Charleshas dissolved into the southern Louisiana bayou. The island, which is connected to the outside world by a road that's known to flood in perfect weather, is home to a tribe of Native americans who have fished and hunted there since the 1800s. |
Facing Climate Change on the Louisiana Bayous—in picturesSource: The Guardian Date: 05/27/2017 Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana is home to a Native American community who fished, hunted, trapped and farmed the land. But since 1955, more than 90% of the island's original land mass has washed away, the loss caused by logging, oil exploration, hurricanes and ineffective flood control. |
A new home: Work continues in effort to relocate island residentsSource: The Daily Comet Date: 04/08/2017 Rita Falgout grew up on Isle de Jean Charles, left and returned after 40 years. When she came back for good, she said, it looked totally different. "The island is not going to be here for much longer," she said in an interview there last week. "If I can move up, I'm going." |