Did oil canals worsen Katrina's effects?

Eventually, petrodollars may provide relief. In 2006, Congress approved a plan to give Louisiana and other Gulf states a large portion of offshore royalties the industry now pays to the federal Treasury. By 2017, Louisiana hopes to get as much as $650 million a year.

Meanwhile, the anything-goes days for oil are over. Regulators demand the use of less-damaging techniques — directional drilling, rerouting of pipelines, wetlands mitigation. Private landowners often ask oil companies to clean up after themselves.

"My job is to make sure they stay on their right of ways, that they don't traverse onto vegetative areas or use machinery that is harmful," said Forrest Travirca III, a land warden for a swath of wetlands near Leeville held by a public trust.

"It's like strip mining. A good strip miner will repair the land."

Cruising in his bay boat through mangrove brakes and past tugboats and crew vessels docked at the offshore-drilling port of Port Fourchon, Travirca pointed out places where oil companies have patched up the land.

For its part, the industry balks at talk of paying for the damage.

"Worldwide, there's this notion that they want the oil industry to pay for everything," John Felmy, chief economist of the American Petroleum Institute, said during the organization's recent meeting in New Orleans. "It's like the world considers the industry a cookie jar."

The industry denies that drilling damaged the delta that much.

Industry spokesman was once regulator
"The real question is, what damage did occur?" said Jim Porter, president of Louisiana's chief oil lobby, the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. "There's no clear-cut answer on it. But there is no doubt there are many, many causes for wetlands loss and access to oil and gas operations is rather insignificant."

In the 1980s, Porter was in charge of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, the agency that regulates drilling and coastal conservation.

Rex Tillerson, chief executive of ExxonMobil Corp., said at the American Petroleum Institute meeting that there were "a lot of reasons" for the delta's decline, including the unstable geology there. "The land moves around a lot along the coast," he said. Geologists say there is evidence that slipping-and-sliding faults have caused land loss.

For now, the oil companies are winning the public relations battle, in part by spending $5 million on a marketing campaign called America's Wetland. "Tell Washington to shore up America's energy coast. It fuels the nation," one TV ad implores, calling on Congress to spend the money it will take to restore the delta. Nowhere is oil's responsibility mentioned.

Many Louisiana politicians, including former Gov. Kathleen Blanco, have backed the campaign.

Taking the other side is a disparate group — among them, Treen; Tab Benoit, a Cajun rock musician who talks about oil's legacy during national tours; and Walter Williams, a writer and animator known for his clay-figure character Mr. Bill, who blogs about it.

"Cigarettes were an easy whipping boy," said Williams. "Oil permeates."

In fact, the industry is resurgent in the delta where, as oil prices soar, wildcatters are turning on long-dormant wells.

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