The New York Times - USA - Arts & Leisure (2020-07-26)

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unforeseen. It was not, by any conventional defi -

nition, natural. But it was alive.

Asked whether this was the future he saw for

southern Louisiana — man-made rivers, man-

made marshes, man-made forests — Lopez

acknowledged that he had a provisional view

of the problem. Even under the rosiest projec-

tions for the diversions, the future coast would

be ‘‘skeletal’’ compared to its current form, but

‘‘functional,’’ at least in economic and ecologi-

cal terms. He expected to preserve the state’s

highway systems, railroads, port and energy

facilities. He was even optimistic about its fi sh-

eries, albeit in some altered condition. ‘‘We can

expect that there will be crab, shrimp and oys-

ters,’’ Lopez said. ‘‘We just can’t say where or

how much.’’ He had fond memories of family

fi shing trips to Plaquemines Parish as a child,

catching speckled trout off the coast near Buras,

where Kindra Arnesen dredged for oysters. He

respected the fears that Arnesen and her allies

expressed about the threats posed by the diver-

sions to the local fi sheries. Still he did not have

a tremendous amount of sympathy for their

plight. ‘‘I’m not saying the transition is going

to be easy, or that it won’t cost money,’’ he said.

‘‘But I’m also not saying that the state or any-

one else is responsible for helping.’’ Just because

your father was an electrician, Lopez said, by

way of example, and your father’s father was

an electrician, doesn’t mean that you need to

be an electrician or that the government should

incentivize you to be one. Some people in the

local fi shing industry , like Arnesen, might be

able to adjust, buying new boats and fi shing new

species. Others won’t.

In May, a team of Tulane researchers led by the

geologist Torbjorn Tornqvist published a study

in the journal Science Advances that showed

that Louisiana’s remaining 6,000 square miles

of coastal wetlands were far closer to collapse

than previously recognized. The present-day rate

of relative sea-level rise has already surpassed the

tipping point at which the drowning of the marsh

is unstoppable. Asked by Mark Schleifstein of The

Times-Picayune-The New Orleans Advocate to

translate his scientifi c fi ndings, Tornqvist said,

‘‘We’re screwed.’’

Still Tornqvist was an ardent supporter of the

diversions. So was his report’s second author,

Krista Jankowski, who as a graduate student con-

ducted much of the research for the paper and

joined CPRA two years ago. The master plan, as

John Lopez was quick to point out after the pub-

lication of their study, has already taken its fi nd-

ings into account. If Tornqvist and his colleagues

were right, the southern marsh will ultimately

succumb to the rising sea, and if New Orleans

exists, it will be as an island city. But they did

expect the diversions to extend the life of the

coast by decades. ‘‘Having a few more decades

could mean the diff erence between something

that looks like managed retreat to something that

looks like complete chaos,’’ Tornqvist says. ‘‘That’s

easily worth a couple of billion dollars, because

it’s not hard to imagine the amount of suff ering

that would be the result of leaving everyone in

this whole region to fi ght for themselves.’’

We may all be screwed in the long term, but

even central planners worried about the medium

term. Engineers often planned in 50-year incre-

ments: The design life of most structures, wheth-

er buildings or bridges or levees, tended to be 50

years. That was why the master plan was a 50-year

plan. By 2070, if Lopez’s calculations were right,

and the sediment diversions worked as designed,

we wouldn’t all be screwed. But a few of us would

be. It was not written in any offi cial document,

but that was part of the plan, too.

Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined

box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.

A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.

KENKEN

42

Answers to puzzles of 7.19.20

SPELLING BEE

Downpour (3 points). Also: Donor, droop, dropdown,

drown, dunno, popup, porno, pound, powwow, pronoun,

propound, proud, rondo, round, roundup, rundown,

unworn, unwound, wound. If you found other legitimate

dictionary words in the beehive, feel free to include

them in your score.

Answers to puzzle on Page 44

DOUBLES PLAY
ETS THECOPA PANI CBAR
SARA HEALSUP I RONRULE
TRAPPART I STS CCTHEDAY
OFSORTS N I TES SADE
RUHROH AGE E I CE T GRE
ELY TUMS DIZZCONTROL
AIRDUCT DEE YAHOOS
STR I PTT RETOUCH BRUTE
TR IMS BENE PHOTOOP
EASE OCTANES WI RETAP
AL I AMUUMENTPARKS HI E
MANOWA R R A P ANU I M I L T
GR ANDMA GA B S NON E T
TATER SORBETS CLOCKYY
TR I ADS TMI STRA I NS
OLDDSTAT I ON ARKS COM
POE OBOE ONC E E L A I NE
LENA S IDEA DL I STER
GG L OU I S E S UR P R I I P AR T Y
UPACREEK ALTROCK HOWL
SAWHORSE YESISEE INO

KENKEN

HALF HITCHES GAS LINES

1. Treasure 2. Ballyhoo


2. Brightly 4. Doubloon


3. Incident 6. Jamboree


4. Maintain


5. Nightcap 9. Peculiar


6. Vagabond


7. Stingray 12. Tortilla

ACROSTIC

A. Saloons

B. Tighten up

C. Etta James

D. Punched in

E. Heathcliff

F. Evolved

G. Netanyahu

H. Kayaks

I. Infantrymen

J. Neaten

K. Galveston

L. Overbuilt

M. Nicknames

N. Work out

O. Roman baths

P. Intoxicate

Q. Theseus

R. Interviewed

S. Neophytes

T. Guest-star

STEPHEN KING, ON WRITING — Take any noun,
put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never
fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float....
Many such thoughts make little... sense, but even the
stranger ones... have a kind of poetic weight....