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Louisiana, Sinking Fast, Prepares to Empty Out Its Coastal Plain

  • State weighs buyouts, prohibiting new development, tax hikes
  • Policy could become template for climate adaptation nationwide
A destroyed camper sits in front of deteriorating trailers in Leeville, Louisiana, U.S., on Monday, December 18, 2017.   Louisiana is preparing recommendations through projects with LA Safe for emptying out coastal areas that are unprotected by levees and will be impacted by sea level rise in the coming years.
Photographer: Derick E. Hingle/
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Louisiana is finalizing a plan to move thousands of people from areas threatened by the rising Gulf of Mexico, effectively declaring uninhabitable a coastal area larger than Delaware.

A draft of the plan, the most aggressive response to climate-linked flooding in the U.S., calls for prohibitions on building new homes in high-risk areas, buyouts of homeowners who live there now and hikes in taxes on those who won’t leave. Commercial development would still be allowed, but developers would need to put up bonds to pay for those buildings’ eventual demolition.