On July 31, Environmental Defense Fund will be retiring our Restoration and Resilience blog. If you would like to continue receiving updates on the efforts to restore coastal Louisiana, please consider following our sister blog on the Restore the Mississippi River Delta website: Delta Dispatches. Delta Dispatches is news from local and national conservation organizations working to restore the environment and economy of America’s largest delta. Economic topics related to restoration will now be included in Delta Dispatches. Please consider subscribing to today!

Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about how environmental restoration provides quadruple economic returns, please visit the new “Building a Restoration Economy” section of the Restore the Mississippi River Delta website: www.mississippiriverdelta.org/economics/. On the site, you will find information on the economic benefits of environmental restoration in the Mississippi River Delta and along the Gulf Coast. Additionally, information also can be found on the benefits of environmental restoration to:

• Tourism and fishing jobs
• Infrastructure-related jobs
• Restoration jobs
• Export-Drive jobs

Two Duke University supply chain studies, “Restoring the Gulf Coast: New Markets for Established Firms” and “Restoring Gulf Oyster Reefs: Opportunities for Innovation,” as well as a report by Mather Economics, “Job Creation from Gulf Coast Wetlands Restoration,” can also be found on the site. These reports explore how increased funding for coastal restoration, such as through the recently passed RESTORE Act, will benefit not only the damaged gulf ecosystem, but the entire coastal restoration supply chain.

Additionally, please check out the new video by the National Wildlife Federation, “Stories from the Coast: Job Creation from Coastal Restoration,” which looks at the job-creating potential of coastal restoration projects.

“If you’re interested in jobs, you can look around, this a construction site. This is heavy equipment doing real work out here, and those are real jobs,” says Mel Landry, a marine habitat resource specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). You can watch the video here.

Please be sure to visit Delta Dispatches to continue receiving updates on EDF’s work restoring the Mississippi River Delta!

When it comes to providing public transportation options for their residents, the cities of the Southern states rank low compared to their peers in other sections of the country, and unfortunately, Louisiana’s largest urban areas are no exception in this regard. Indeed, when the Brookings Institution conducted a survey of public transit provisioning in America’s 100 largest metropolitan areas last year, the researchers found that seven of the worst 10 cities for public transit access were located south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Not one city in the Southeastern United States was ranked in the top 20, and only three – including New Orleans, which ranked 26th – cracked the top 40. Baton Rouge placed a less-than-exemplary 82nd.

But if the middling performance of southern Louisiana’s cities on the public transit survey is any indication, then why (and how) do so many residents of New Orleans, the Bayou State’s largest metro area, live without cars? This paradox is all the more striking when one considers the city’s well-documented history of hurricanes, floods, and mandatory evacuations – instances when having a set of four wheels wouldn’t just be a luxury, but effectively a necessity. In this post, we’ll look at some of the factors behind this situation, and why steps to address transit access could benefit the region’s economy and its emergency preparedness efforts.

Carless by choice?

Looking at car ownership statistics for coastal Louisiana parishes collected by the Census Bureau, one sees the striking variability in car ownership trends within the region, especially when comparing automobile access rates in its densely settled core (e.g.) Orleans Parish, against household car availability in nearby sections of the Mississippi River Delta and the Chenier Plain.

Source: American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau

One might believe that it’s a question of wants rather than needs. After all, much of New Orleans was laid out well before the 20th century, and even today, many of the city’s neighborhoods remain pedestrian-friendly. In addition, having a sedan or an SUV might not be a major priority for New Orleanians when there are functioning buses and streetcars available.

In reality, though, the overriding factor behind carlessness isn’t choice; rather, it is financial constraint. The payments associated with maintaining an automobile, periodically filling up its gas tank and keeping it insured, are often too burdensome for the 29,000 Orleans Parish wage earners (equivalent to 22% of the city’s civilian employed population) who take home less than $15,000 per year.

Think about what this means from a broader perspective. The carless – often poor and predominantly members of minority groups – are cut off from job sites in suburban and rural areas that are unreachable by train or bus, limiting their potential ability to participate in restoration projects and other work opportunities far from Louisiana’s urban centers. More significantly, when a major flood or a tropical storm is bears down on the region, and an evacuation order is issued, Louisianans without cars are left stranded, leading to predictably terrible outcomes for those left behind.

Why transport options matter for coastal Louisianans

Where resident automobile access is a serious concern, municipalities and state governments should coordinate evacuation strategies to save lives when disaster strikes. When Hurricane Camille was approaching the Mississippi coast in 1969, thousands of state residents were bused to inland shelters to ride out the storm. Though several dozen Mississippians lost their lives in the disaster, the death toll would probably have been much higher without a preemptive evacuation.

Admittedly, there has been commendable progress on the disaster management front in recent years. In the period following the storms and levee failures of 2005, Louisiana municipalities expanded programs to help those without cars during disasters, and the busing of residents from the New Orleans area ahead of the approach of Hurricane Gustav in 2008 was a dramatic improvement over the planning and execution mistakes that marred evacuation efforts prior to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall three years earlier. Local residents stepped up as well, establishing organizations that have earned plaudits for working with government authorities on disaster management coordination and response. These efforts could be further aided through the use of social media to establish carpooling networks for emergency evacuations. Perhaps a hypothetical service called Community Automobile Response (CAR) could allow local residents to help their neighbors and nearby citizens with a lift to a place of shelter prior to a storm’s arrival.

Even under normal circumstances, more could be done to improve access to buses and other forms of public transit in areas outside of urban centers. For example, given Louisiana’s extensive system of navigable canals and rivers, a system of ferry boats and water taxis could be used to link waterside towns and cities throughout the delta, and existing stretches of rail track used exclusively for freight shipments at present could serve as routes for expanded passenger service between New Orleans and nearby cities like Baton Rouge. Such moves would have the added benefits of broadening the pool of workers for resilience projects in coastal Louisiana and expanding the envelope of tourist attractions for carless tourists visiting the Big Easy.

With the summer storm season upon us once again, it will be important for emergency management officials to think creatively about ways to increase the number of transit options available for those who live without cars in coastal Louisiana. Thoughtful planning and coordination on this front could be a good step towards combating social vulnerability, improving community resilience and generating more employment options for people in coastal Louisiana.

The Myrtle Grove sediment diversion is a linchpin of Louisiana's groundbreaking plan to restore the coast and repair damage inflicted by the BP oil disaster. However, the State and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are considering permits for the construction of a massive coal export terminal right next to this critical restoration project. Allowing these permits to proceed could stop the Myrtle Grove project in its tracks.

RAM Terminal, LLC has recently applied for permission to locate a coal export facility immediately adjacent to the location of the Myrtle Grove sediment diversion. The proposed facility will likely have a significant impact on the water and sediment flow in the river — and would therefore impact the Myrtle Grove sediment diversion’s ability to restore the surrounding wetlands and marshes.

by Shawn Stokes

While doing research for a Duke University study on jobs in Gulf Coast restoration, I met an affable entrepreneur named Robert “Bob” Wetta. He is the president of DSC Dredge, a small business founded by his father in the early 1990s. DSC Dredge manufactures portable hydraulic dredges for use in mining, navigation, and environmental restoration. The family-owned firm has over 100 employees, who work on the design, construction, and servicing of dredging equipment at DSC’s facilities in Reserve, La., a St. John the Baptist Parish community near the western edge of the New Orleans metropolitan area.

As a native Louisianan, Wetta is all too familiar with the precarious state of the Gulf Coast’s wetlands, and knows how important the strategic placement of sediment by comparatively nimble portable dredges can be when confronting local issues like sea level rise, subsidence in the Mississippi River Delta, and the aftermath of the 2010 oil spill. However, his view of vulnerability and corporate response extends far beyond the southeastern section of the Bayou State. Indeed, DSC’s president is increasingly setting his sights on similar risks of flooding and land loss in another region known for its densely settled coastal plains, verdant deltas, and periodic tropical storm landings — South and Southeast Asia.

“About half of all Americans  – more than 150 million people — live in counties bordering the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico, and in many of these areas, restoration of coastal wetlands could enhance natural and artificial defenses for flood protection,” says Mr. Wetta. “When you then think about how important the issue of flood resilience is for a nation like Bangladesh, where that same number of people is crowded into a small, flat country smack in the path of cyclones, you start to see why dredgers could play a significant role in saving a city like Dhaka from disaster.”

(Click to see global view) The map above shows indexed sea level rise risks for the coastal regions of countries in South Asia (left panel) and Southeast Asia (right panel). Red and brown shading indicates countries that face the most severe risks from this environmental threat, due to the heavy concentration of cities and population centers in vulnerable areas within their borders. (Source: Center for Global Development)

In response to sea level rise, Asian countries like India, Cambodia , Indonesia and Vietnam are developing their own integrated coastal restoration programs that incorporate heavy construction along with natural flood protection measures such as shoreline mangrove swamps and restored coastal wetlands. Since these countries will need portable dredges to carry out much of the work, this presents a terrific opportunity for Wetta’s business to expand its footprint in an export market with tremendous growth potential.

A DSC "Shark" class dredge at work on a coastal restoration project (Source: DSC Dredge)

He explained to me that in order for manufacturing companies like his to be competitive in the global market, they need to innovate, which often requires substantial capital investment in research and development. But companies are often wary of committing resources to innovation unless there is sufficient product demand to help them recoup their investment. Wetta wishes that more interest in restoration investment could come from U.S. stakeholders, explaining, “For dredge manufacturing firms like ours, we know that more of our demand could come from public works projects like coastal restoration here in America.  Unfortunately, public funding for such projects is sporadic and sometimes falls short of what is needed. By comparison, there are other countries that have established dedicated funding streams to commit much more to their coasts.”

For example, the Netherlands, whose area is roughly twice that of the state of New Jersey, invests about 0.1% of its annual gross domestic product (GDP) (550 million Euros, or $732 million, at an exchange rate of US $1.33 = €1) in coastal restoration and flood protection. This funding provides a huge incentive for private firms in the low-lying country to focus on these sectors and become market leaders. If the United States were to spend a similar proportion of its GDP on protecting thickly-settled coastlines and river valleys from ecosystem damage and floods, we would be seeing investment to the tune of $13 – $15 billion dollars each year in dredging, site redesign, and other facets of wetland restoration and resilience enhancements.

Committing more resources to ecosystem restoration would give firms like DSC Dredge the confidence to invest in the innovations necessary to maintain their global competitiveness. Securing this investment in the Gulf Coast’s wetlands would not only help that region’s businesses, but could also make the United States as a whole a leader in the coastal restoration and management industry —  a sector that will only grow bigger in a wetter and warmer world.

Shawn Stokes is a research analyst at the Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness at Duke University. Prior to joining the CGGC, Shawn worked as a data analyst at FINCA International, served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, and conducted policy analysis for USAID Panama.  His current work focuses on food, agriculture and environmental global value chains, including a series on coastal restoration and management along the Gulf Coast.

Related Links

Asia and its floods: Save our cities [The Economist]

Changes in wetlands in Dhaka City: Trends and physico-environmental consequences [Journal of Life and Earth Science (Bangladesh)]

Climate and Society column (Restoration and Resilience): What the Gulf Coast could share with Guatemala on storm resilience [Part I], [Part II], [Part III]

Profiles in resilience: Restoration Systems [Restoration and Resilience]

Profiles in restoration: The Central Wetlands Unit, Part II [Restoration and Resilience]

Task force: Restoring sediment key to Gulf revival [Bloomberg Businessweek]

In the two years since April 20, 2010, the date of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and sinking off southeastern Louisiana, the Gulf Coast has endured its fair share of troubles, only the first of which was a massive oil spill. There were the environmental challenges of saving threatened wildlife and measuring the disaster's impact on ocean habitats and coastal ecosystems rebounding from the destructive hurricanes of the previous decade. There were the economic hurdles as well: worries about the future of fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, concerns about the drilling moratorium and the slow pace of permitting for new energy projects in the Gulf, and declines in summer tourism that left hotel owners and restaurant workers wondering if the seaside counties and parishes of this region would lose their regular customers due to public perception of the spill and its impact.

As we approach the second anniversary, there is some evidence that the Gulf is emerging from the crisis. Tourists have returned to the region, as have energy companies drilling for offshore oil. In the harbors of some fishing communities, the buzz of motorboat engines is once again heralding the start of shrimping season. Moreover, economic gauges like employment and household income are approaching pre-spill levels, suggesting that things are, at the surface, returning to normal.

However, it would be wrong to think that these superficial signs of renewal are guarantors of successful recovery for the region. We've seen the stories about tar balls continuing to wash ashore on beaches in the central Gulf Coast. We know that biologists are worried about the mixed signals that the plant and animal life of the region send regarding the pace of environmental regenesis. We see that despite the reassuring statistics on wages, tax revenue, and hiring at the state and regional levels, there are towns and households where the losses stemming from this disaster, measured by diminished health indicators, reduced commercial activity, and — for at least eleven families on the coast — loved ones who will never come home, cannot be settled simply with a paycheck or a sharp advertising campaign from a multinational firm. 

The spirit of the Gulf — resourceful, vigorous, and rich — is inextricably tied to the natural surroundings that make this region unique. Without the right efforts to ensure that the environment of this region recovers strongly from the spill, a near-term economic fillip will inevitably be followed by a reckoning of longer duration. The payouts from BP and other parties responsible for the spill have cushioned the region from a more severe downturn than originally feared, but the surest way to protect the commercial activities tied to the health of beaches, wetlands, and fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico region is to insure that the damage from the spill is corrected as best as possible, and to put in place the infrastructure to make the region's ecosystems more resilient to future damage.

That's part of the reason why a bill like the RESTORE Act is so important to remember as we approach the second anniversary of the BP oil disaster. The RESTORE Act — bipartisan legislation that would dedicate 80 percent of the Clean Water Act penalties stemming from the 2010 Gulf oil spill toward environmental and economic restoration in the region — has already passed in the Senate by an overwhelming majority, and just yesterday, a similar provision in the House transportation bill was approved by the lower chamber of Congress. Reconciling the Senate and House bills will likely take weeks, but the fact that both Democrats and Republicans in Washington have voted in favor of this legislation gives us hope that a bill to put thousands of people and billions of dollars to work on restoring coastal wetlands, cleaning up damaged beaches, studying regional animal life, and reviving the unified ecosystem will ultimately become law. 

Just think: by this time next spring, there could be guidelines in place and concrete action afoot to make full-scale restoration a reality. Wouldn't that be a great way to mark the third anniversary? We certainly think so.

Related Links

Billion dollar baby: After BP's big damage pledge, is more money needed to restore the Gulf? [Restoration and Resilience]

For richer? No, for poorer: Statistics reveal post-spill slowdown in coastal Louisiana job, wage growth [Restoration and Resilience]

Gulf oil drilling to see busiest year since 2010 BP spill [The Huffington Post]

House approves transportation bill extension with Restore Act provision [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

NWF tour finds BP oil still soaking Louisiana marshes, menacing wildlife [Delta Dispatches]

Two years later, spill's dangers linger [Tampa Bay Times]

Aside from Weston Solutions, which we profiled a few weeks back on our blog, there are hundreds of other companies involved in ecosystem regeneration on the Gulf Coast, many of which were listed in a recent Duke University report on the economic impact of wetland restoration on the national economy. In today’s post, we look at Restoration Systems (RS), a small business whose Raleigh headquarters are a short drive from Duke’s Durham, N.C. campus.

Restoration Systems focuses on mitigation banking and wetland rehabilitation. The company, founded in 1998, has restored large-scale ecosystems in North Carolina and other parts of the South. A central tenet of its efforts is restoration coupled with protection. Before embarking on a project, Restoration System purchases a permanent conservation easement from local landowners that prohibits future development and drainage at the location slated for regeneration. RS then works with site designers, plant and animal biologists, and hydrodynamic modelers to rehabilitate the degraded habitat, with the goal of replicating historic vegetation and drainage patters. After the project is completed, the company is then issued mitigation credits over time based on the ecological health of the restored streams and wetlands in the targeted area. It then sells these credits to commercial and infrastructure developers, like road and levee builders, so that they can satisfy mitigation obligations set by federal and state governments. The company monitors the project and is paid as progress on wetland recovery metrics is made during the seven years after restoration.

“Our firm has been around for about fifteen years, and in that time it has planted over a million trees at restoration sites. None will ever be cut down,” says George Howard, co-founder and president of Restoration Systems. With a family tradition of careers in engineering and water management, Howard says that working on wetlands seemed like a logical step after serving as a Senate aide in Washington. He helped to sponsor the Cape Fear Regional Mitigation Bank, one of the first of its kind in the United States, in the mid-1990s, and sought ways to make the Southeast a national leader in ecosystem restoration.

“Our region is blessed with millions of acres of wetlands, but for too many years, we did too little to restore and protect these invaluable environments. In the Mississippi River Delta, the Tidewater region of Virginia, and other areas, we are trying to reverse the damage of past decades and change local mindsets about best-use practices for coastal areas. We’re a young company, but we’ve already helped to restore over 25,000 acres of wetland habitat in nine states. By providing a vehicle for funding restoration, we help to expedite the recovery process for degraded environments.”

In Louisiana, Restoration Systems is planning to restore a 340-acre site they own at Jesuit Bend, a community in Plaquemines Parish, as well as a 1,846 acre site in southern Lafourche Parish. The firm will partner with local companies on the projects, which could ultimately rebuild over three square miles of sensitive wetlands in vulnerable sections of the southeastern Louisiana coast. Between the planning, dredging, planting and maintenance, dozens would be put to work in a variety of job categories, skilled to unskilled.  

“I’ve spent a lot time in the Mississippi River Delta, and despite the tremendous damage, I know that we can restore it. Our company and others would be willing to commit more energy to the region if there were a catalyst for enhanced rehabilitation efforts. It seems like a no-brainer that coastlines damaged by the BP oil disaster should be restored with penalties from the spill. If the House can join the Senate in pushing forward the RESTORE Act, there will be tremendous benefits for the local environment and the local economy.  I know — I'm ready to hire.”

Related Links

Profiles in resilience: Weston Solutions [Restoration and Resilience]

Restoring the Gulf Coast: New markets for established firms [Duke University Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness]

The big footprint of small business in Gulf Coast restoration [Restoration and Resilience]

What does the 90-day transportation bill extension mean for the RESTORE Act? [Delta Dispatches]

by Whit Remer

This story was originally posted on the Mississippi River Delta Restoration Campaign's Delta Dispatches blog.

Muddling through an oily mess: An oil spill response volunteer trudges through wetlands caked with crude oil near Venice, Louisiana on May 20, 2010 (Source: AFP/Getty Images)

With a March 31 deadline quickly approaching, last Thursday (March 29), the U.S. House and Senate passed a 90-day extension to the surface transportation bill. This extension means we will need to continue working hard to ensure the RESTORE Act stays alive and is included in the final version of the bill.

The RESTORE Act is legislation that would dedicate 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines from the gulf oil spill toward gulf environmental and economic restoration. Earlier in March, we reported a big win for the RESTORE Act after the Senate approved it as an amendment to their version of a new two-year highway bill. This was an impressive bipartisan win, with 76 senators voting yes on the amendment.

Last week's extension signals that the House did not agree to the terms proposed in the two-year Senate bill. The extension gives the two chambers an extra three months to craft a bill that both the House and Senate can agree on. While nothing is certain during the next three months, it is important to remember all the wins the RESTORE Act has had thus far — wins that both sides will have difficulty forgetting while moving forward on a final version of the transportation bill.

In February, House Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) introduced and passed an amendment dedicating 80 percent of expected Clean Water Act penalties from the spill towards gulf restoration. In the Senate, the RESTORE Act passed out of the Environment and Public Works Committee in September, and just weeks ago, the Senate overwhelmingly approved it as an amendment. When Congress begins to put together a long-term transportation bill, they must not forget these important wins.

The RESTORE Act is still alive and well, especially in the minds of Congress and those in the gulf who need it most. Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to encourage Congress to continue fighting for oil spill restoration in the gulf. Without action on the RESTORE Act in the new transportation bill, the Gulf Coast may lose out on desperately needed restoration funding. We must continue to energize the Gulf Coast delegation and let them know how much the RESTORE Act means to the environment and economy of the Gulf Coast.

Related Links

Congress passes 90-day stopgap transportation bill [New Orleans Times-Picayune]

How the RESTORE Act could kickstart job growth along the Gulf Coast [Restoration and Resilience]

NWF tour finds BP oil still soaking Louisiana marshes, menacing wildlife [Delta Dispatches]

The RESTORE Act [MississippiRiverDelta.org]

Source: Flickr (Steve Snodgrass)

Bob Marshall, a veteran journalist at The New Orleans Times-Picayune, has published his latest “Marsh Madness” quiz, which tests readers’ knowledge of coastal land loss and other issues related to Louisiana’s wetlands. Smart money says that few of the basketball fans in the Big Easy for the 2012 Final Four have heard of this competition, but we hope you’ll give it a shot this weekend. We can’t promise you a trophy for participating, but for one shining moment, we’ll congratulate you for making the effort to learn more about the Mississippi River Delta.

Related Links

Another game worth winning: The competition for coastal restoration research [Restoration and Resilience]

Marsh Madness returns, test your knowledge of Louisiana outdoors [The New Orleans Times-Picayune]

The Rodney Dangerfield of natural spaces: Coastal Louisiana [Restoration and Resilience]

March is National Women’s History Month, and in honor of that event, we decided to use this series to revisit a topic that we first touched upon a year ago: gender balance in the Gulf Coast’s green economy.

In our previous two posts, we looked at the past and present states of women’s employment in some of the industries that would stand to gain most from passage of the RESTORE Act in Congress. In the final piece of our three-part series, we look at how people in Louisiana and elsewhere are working to get more women into these sectors along the Gulf Coast.

The gender imbalance in the restoration sector, while significant, is not an impossible hurdle to overcome. Greater investment in rebuilding Louisiana’s wetlands will lead to more work overall, so this is not an issue whose solution is predicated on displacing current male workers. Furthermore, as changing perceptions about jobs and gender roles take root in American economy, it seems fitting that wetland restoration and other green sectors should also become more representative of the broader workforce.

Steps have already been taken in the right direction. Many of the lawmakers who led the effort to pass the RESTORE Act in the Senate, such as Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tx.), and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), are women, and there are probably more female community leaders and coastal specialists working on delta restoration at present then there have ever been. 

Still, there’s tremendous work to be done. In its 2009 report to Governor Jindal, the Louisiana Commission on Women’s Policy offered several recommendations, including tax credits for child care and the promotion of science and engineering careers to young women, to create more opportunities for female involvement in restoration-related fields. To that end, local educational institutions like Louisiana Tech and LSU have begun working with the National Science Foundation to prepare more women for the jobs that will be required as wetland restoration efforts are ramped up along the Gulf Coast. Beyond these efforts at the university level, it will also be important to secure buy-in from Louisiana’s contractors and small businesses, as they will have to consider ways to employ more women at their firms.

Source: Library of Congress

We would do well to consider a historical precedent for corrective action. As the nation mobilized to fight World War II, American women of the Greatest Generation followed “Rosie the Riveter” to factory jobs across the country, averting labor shortages that might have crippled the Allied cause. As their granddaughters in Louisiana and other states confront environmental threats like land loss and climate change, they too will need role models to steer them towards next-generation careers in construction, engineering, and scientific research. Perhaps “Hannah the hydraulic engineer” or “Trisa the tree planter” could inspire Millennial women to pursue careers in water management, wetland protection, and other sectors that could grow with RESTORE Act funding.

Louisianans of both sexes are affected by sea level rise and wetland degradation. There should be ample opportunities for Louisiana’s residents, regardless of their gender, to participate in careers that allow them to increase their earning potential and save their state at the same time. By having more women working on wetland projects supported by legislative bills like the RESTORE Act, Louisiana could serve as a model for improving gender parity in the workplace and, simultaneously, secure a brighter future for its environment.

Related Links

Census: Women closing in on male-dominated fields [USA Today]

Could restoration work lead to better wages for Louisiana women? Part I of III [Restoration and Resilience]

Could restoration work lead to better wages for Louisiana women? Part II of III [Restoration and Resilience]

Green jobs: Improving the climate for gender equality too [International Labour Organization]

How the RESTORE Act could kickstart job growth along the Gulf Coast [Restoration and Resilience]

Job Prospects Grow for Women in Construction [The New York Times]

March is National Women’s History Month, and in honor of that event, we decided to use this series to revisit a topic that we first touched upon a year ago: gender balance in the Gulf Coast’s green economy.

In our previous piece in this series, we looked at the relative absence of women from environmental restoration sectors like transportation and engineering. You might have come away wondering why the gender ratios are so skewed in fields such as construction, where there are approximately 32 male Louisianans working for every one female. 

The percentages of men and women in four occupational categories in Louisiana, 2006-2010 (Source: American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau)

As in other parts of the country, the disparities in Louisiana’s labor profile were historically rooted in low levels of educational access for women and traditional social norms about female employment. In a 2004 report, Dr. Beth Willinger, who then served as the Executive Director of the Newcomb College Center for Research on Women at Tulane University, noted that: 

“The fact that fewer Louisiana women attain a high school education than women nationally has consequences for employment and earnings. While men with a high school education can obtain relatively high-paying jobs with fringe benefits, for example in construction and transportation; women with a high school education tend to obtain jobs in the service industry, or as sales clerks and receptionists that pay the minimum wage, offer little security and few health or retirement benefits.”

What makes this moment in time different is that the gap in education between males and females in Louisiana has narrowed and, more recently, reversed in favor of women. Mirroring broader trends across the industrialized world, a higher percentage of Louisiana’s women (72.4% in 2006) are now high school graduates than Louisiana’s men (59.3%). Moreover, women in Louisiana earn more than half of all degrees at the post-secondary level.

This present pool of female candidates – the best educated in Louisiana’s history – should be an obvious source of new employees for firms involved in coastal restoration and other fields identified by Louisiana Economic Development in its “Blue ocean” strategy. Yet when we look at the labor statistics, we see that Louisiana women, who represented nearly half of the state’s total workforce (48.6%) in 2009, are still dramatically underrepresented in restoration sector fields that pay proportionately well (see below chart). For example, in 2009, only 11.3% of Louisiana’s architects and engineers were women.

(Click to enlarge) The bar chart at left (above) shows the ratio of average female earnings versus average male earnings in selected sectors related to environmental restoration during the period from 2006 to 2010 in Louisiana. In five out of the seven sectors, the ratio of women’s salaries to men’s salaries is greater than 0.601 (the gender wage ratio across all civilian employee groups in Louisiana from ’06-’10), which is marked off by a vertical black line. This suggests that these five restoration-related industries scored better than average in approaching female/male pay parity. The median annual female earnings in those five sectors, highlighted in blue in the chart at right (above), ranged from just under $15,400 for installation, maintenance, and repair workers (below the Louisiana median female salary of $23,293 during the 2006-2010 period) to just over $56,000 for architects and engineers, showing that the push for wage parity affected low-income, middle-income, and high-income occupations in the restoration sector (Source: American Community Survey, U.S. Census Bureau)

In our last post of this series, we will consider some of the steps that state and federal stakeholders are taking to correct this imbalance.

Related Links

Could restoration work lead to better wages for Louisiana women? Part I of III [Restoration and Resilience]

Female graduates increase in usually male-dominated fields [The Daily Reveille (Louisiana State University)]

Gender equality and the green economy: Women underrepresented in Louisiana’s construction, engineering sectors [Restoration and Resilience]

Program would require contracts to consider only local for coastal jobs [The Houma Courier]

The wage gap – Unconscious bias in judging the value of predominantly “female” professions [Psychology Today]