Floodwaters Threaten New Orleans Oaks

 

A downed live oak (Quercus virginiana) rests against a New Orleans church. The fate of the city?EUR??,,????'???s landmark trees will depend on how quickly engineers can remove Katrina?EUR??,,????'???s floodwaters.

Coleen Perilloux Landry is the only human member of New Orleans?EUR??,,????'??? Live Oak Society. The rest of the 5,000 members are trees.

The southern live oak is a familiar sight from Texas to Virginia but nowhere is it a more integral part of the landscape than in New Orleans. Thousands of the trees populate the city and add considerable charm and much-needed shade. Two weeks after Katrina, a large number of trees remained under water?EUR??,,????'??+water that could end up killing them.

No one is more aware of that fact than Coleen Perilloux Landry, the sole human member of the city?EUR??,,????'???s Live Oak Society. According to its bylaws, the quirky club has just one human member?EUR??,,????'??+the rest are trees, all with a circumference of at least eight feet. Her own home destroyed by the storm, Landry is also mourning the sunk oaks, which will drown if their roots don?EUR??,,????'???t see the light of day soon.

The oaks?EUR??,,????'??? fate was the subject of a Sept. 7 radio piece on National Public Radio that interviewed Landry and several tree experts. There is a window of hope for the trees, but it won?EUR??,,????'???t last much longer, the experts report.

The oak ?EUR??,,????'??is very resilient,?EUR??,,????'?? said Bonnie Stein of the state?EUR??,,????'???s Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry. ?EUR??,,????'??It can sit in water for two weeks and still be O.K.?EUR??,,????'?? What?EUR??,,????'???s unknown is how the toxic stew of gasoline, sewage and salt water will affect the trees, some of which are over 1,000 years old.

?EUR??,,????'??You?EUR??,,????'???ve got trees that are suffocating for lack of oxygen,?EUR??,,????'?? said Steve Shurtz, a forestry manager in Baton Rouge. ?EUR??,,????'??I?EUR??,,????'???m afraid only time is really going to tell. There?EUR??,,????'???s no way to tell what the loss is really going to be.?EUR??,,????'??

If the die-off is significant, the character of the city will be altered for the next hundred years or more. More than 1,000 of the oaks, for example, populate New Orleans?EUR??,,????'??? City Park.