Louisiana attorney general withholding flood funds over abortion ban is anti-Black climate terrorism – By sophialburns (Daily Kos Emerging Fellows) / Aug 19, 2022
As hurricane season creeps up on Atlantic coastal communities, New Orleans is flooding once again. Jezebel reported on Thursday that Louisiana’s Republican Attorney General Jeff Landry has once again pushed the Louisiana Bond Commission to “delay a $39 million future line of credit for the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board,” the first time being in July. According to Jezebel, the city issued a flood warning on Thursday, and a special weather statement due to excessive heat is still in effect at the time of this writing. This funding is necessary for critical flood mitigation and response, and is being withheld until the city—a Democratic stronghold and economic center in Louisiana—agrees to comply with the state’s abortion ban.
When I visited New Orleans last year, my tour guide made it clear that many parts of New Orleans have still not fully recovered from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, let alone from Hurricane Ida last August. The majority-Black Lower Ninth Ward was battered in both storms and has had a disproportionately treacherous experience with recovery, especially as many Black residents who were bused out of storm-torn neighborhoods have not returned. Images of abandoned citizens were seared into the public consciousness, enduring and heartbreaking symbols of systemic neglect, environmental racism, and the long-term impacts of segregation.
Neighborhoods like the Lower Ninth Ward were historically built on cheaper, low-lying land, while wealthy white settlers lived on high ground. In the early 1900s, zoning ordinances outright banned Black Louisianans from living in white neighborhoods. A century later, Katrina-era policy restricted rentals of what little housing was left to blood relatives. The fact that many Black New Orleans residents have not returned home has accelerated gentrification and the decimation of public schools. Racism has always played a role in New Orleans’ ability to protect its population in the face of natural (or man-made) disasters, and the state’s use of environmental funding to rebuke the city over abortion will continue to put Black residents in harm’s way.
