I'm planning a seed-bank study on some land a colleague wants to restore to prairie.

This morning, looking for background information on seed banks in grasslands, I ran across this article:

"Comparison of Seed Bank Size and Composition in Fringing, Restored, and Impounded Marsh in Southwest Louisiana. By: La Peyre, Megan K. G.; Bush Tom, Chrsitina S.; Winslow, Christian; Caldwell, Aaron; Nyman, J. Andrew. Southeastern Naturalist, 2005, Vol. 4 Issue 2, p273, 14p, 2 charts, 2 graphs, 1 map; (AN 17728277)"

And I wanted to cry a little bit - even beyond the human cost, there's going to be a massive environmental cost. All those graduate students - their field sites are gone. All the birds and the terrestrial animals. And probably a lot of the marine or freshwater life are going to be affected by the backwash of gas, oil, pollution, and human waste that comes in as NOLA drains.

I met some people last summer at the Prairie Conference meetings who were working on prairie-like areas in south Louisiana. I wonder if they're okay.