Ike damage worse due to human degradation

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Hurricane Ike Wreaks Havoc On Texas’ Coastal Ecosystem

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 September 2008, 13:20 CDT

Experts say Hurricane Ike caused massive damage to Texas' coastal ecosystem that could take a generation to heal.

As scientists and land managers start to assess the storm's impacts on beaches, dunes and marshes, they are seeing signs of present damage and future worries to a coast already hammered by decades of pollution, population growth and habitat loss.

Jim Sutherlin, superintendent of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's 24,250-acre J.D. Murphree Wildlife Management Area, near Port Arthur, said the impacts are going to be phenomenal

"We're going to take the critters that crawl or walk, and for the full stretch of the coastal zone that got the full impact of the coastal flood, they're just eliminated."

Unfortunately, the upper Gulf Coast of Texas was already under stress from many sources like coastal development and subsidence – a drop in the land's surface level as petroleum and groundwater are pumped out – have degraded large areas of marsh. "
Read the full story here. SeEtta

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