This photo illustrates the serious problem of soil erosion facing Louisiana. What was once land is now part of Lake Pontchartrain. While bureaucrats and politicians in Washington vote hundreds of billions of dollars for wars, foreign aid, etc., 24 square miles of Louisiana is disappearing every year because of tidal action, storms, etc. In addition, because levees were built to prevent the Mississippi River from overflowing into its natural flood plain, the land is subsiding at a rate of 1/2 inch a year.