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Louisiana Sportsman Discusses The Environmental Damage In The Gulf

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - As we remember the one year anniversary of the start of the Gulf oil spill, a Louisiana sportsman says its damage so far pales beside something done deliberately.

Chris Macaluso, host of a hunting and fishing radio show, says Louisiana's motto Sportsman's Paradise, is endangered less by spilled oil (yes, there is some but it isn't everywhere) but by 100 years of making the Mississippi River safe for shipping.

By dredging the channel, sediment doesn't make it to the delta, according to Macaluso.

"That sediment no longer gets out there and the land continues to sink. It continues to wash away. It continues to be vulnerable to hurricane impacts and it doesn't have the mechanism to repair itself any more. We've lost more than 2,000 square miles of coastal wetlands in Louisiana, an area that's roughly larger than the state of Delaware."

Go to http://vanishingparadise.org for more information.

Reported By John Ostapkovich, KYW Newsradio

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