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Coastal Desk 10:19 AM THU JANUARY 29, 2015

Delta Blues Part 2: When Life Gives You Saltwater,Make Shrimp Ponds

By EVE TROEH

Louisiana faces the highest rates of sea level rise in the world. As policy and funding debates rageover how to best restore and protect our coastal communities, local leaders also look for allieselsewhere.

On the other side of the globe, they've found sympathetic ears in Vietnam. That nation also has abelow­sea­level region at the mouth of a great river. As in Louisiana, people in Vietnam who make aliving from the land, or the water, need to be close to that land and water. But, they are morevulnerable to flooding, saltier water, decaying soil and stronger storms. These threats grow as sealevels rise. So, which parts to protect? And at what cost? In the Mekong delta region of Vietnamthey're grappling with the same question we face here in Louisiana: whether to go with the flow ofchanging water, or try to control it.

Farmers in Vietnam's Mekong delta adapt to climate change as saltwater creeps onto their land.Jesse Hardman WWNO

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The color green takes over when you travel the countryside of the Mekong River delta. Banana treesand rice fields stretch into the horizon. Long, slim boats bob on slow, brown rivers. Villages holdsimple, spare homes, with palm­thatched roofs. The striking spires of Buddhist pagodas reach forblue sky. It’s relaxed, a far cry from Saigon, that striving, busy city.

But there are complexities and striving here, too, ofteninvolving water. A network of man­made canals deliverfreshwater from the rivers, or give access south to thesea. And then gates and walls and levees control waterthroughout the delta.

Our guide through this landscape is Tim Gorman, aPh.D. student from Cornell University studying big waterengineering projects like levees and gates. Not from atechnical perspective, but whether they work for people.

"You’ll find a mix of rice farming and shrimp farming,saltwater shrimp farming," Gorman says as breakfast arrives to our table.

It's fried eggs with fresh French bread. And thick Vietnamese coffee, with sweet condensed milk, madeby a woman at her small cart.

"You could build best system in the world, you know, thebest dykes or sluice gates or dams, and people mightrespond in unexpected ways," he says.

Unexpected ways that muck up the best­laid plans ofgovernments or engineers. Planners and techniciansknow the physical world really well, and they come upwith solutions, but people don’t respond in the way theyexpect them to — and often aren’t happy with these sortof interventions.

We get on motorbikes and head out for examples. Acrossa bridge, we wind down a side street that follows a body of water about 100 feet wide. It’s a man­madecanal that goes to the sea.

Tim points to big cement columns that support a huge metal gate in the water, the Lang Tram gate.It's a salinity control sluice gate, built in the late 1990s, with the idea of blocking saltwater andprotecting this canal, making it possible to grow rice all year.

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Delta Blues Part 2: When Life Gives You Saltwater, Make Shrimp Ponds

Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

Vietnamese coffee.Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

Growing rice all year is a big deal. The communist government had sent people to the delta to farmrice after the war, but with the natural cycle of freshwater during rainy season, and salty seawaterduring dry season, they could really only grow enough for themselves.

In 1990s, Vietnam’s economy opened up. The gate, and others like it, were part of a major watercontrol project to jumpstart the rural economy.

"This is one of their big­ticket projects, tens to hundreds of millions of dollars," says Gorman. It camewith a clear message: We’ve spent a lot of money to keep saltwater out, and from here on out, you’resupposed to grow rice.

Officials banked on getting two or three crops of rice ayear. The farmers would make more money. The nationwould have more rice. Win­win, right? Except, by thetime the gates were finished:

"People in this area had switched, for the most part,from rice cultivation to shrimp, saltwater shrimpcultivation, mostly black tiger prawn," says Gorman. "Sothey built these big structures with the idea of protectingall this land from saline intrusion, but by the time theybuilt it people didn’t want to be protected from saline

The Lang Tram gate was built in the 1990s to block saltwater from flowing into rice farms.Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

Tim Gorman studies large­scale engineeringprojects.Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

intrusion."

The farmers had turned their freshwater rice fields into saltwater shrimp ponds. They had adapted.“If we can’t keep the saltwater out, let’s use it!” Shrimp prices were good. Forget rice.

Two middle­aged women, Ut and Manh, sit in the shade nearby, selling soft drinks and snacks. Withanimated hands, they tell Gorman and local research assistant Khiem Nguyen what happened whenthe gates closed.

Ut and her husband were among the many people whocouldn’t easily get saltwater for their shrimp ponds afterthe gates closed. So, in 2001, her husband’s friendsdared him to protest. Gorman and Nguyen translatetheir story.

"At first it was four people who showed up at this gate todemand that the gate be opened, and then it quicklysnowballed," Gorman says. A thousand, maybe 2,000people gathered to pry open the gates. But they couldn’t.So they started digging around the gates, to let water inthat way.

"They were sleeping there in shifts, three eight­hour shifts. So there would always be a group there,always awake," says Gorman. Ut and Manh say it was fun. They cooked food and sang songs,including the communist anthem from right after the war.

Gorman can’t emphasize enough how rare this is — any public display, much less mass protest — incommunist Vietnam.

The protest went on for three or four days. A group of women formed a front line to protect theprotesters from arrest. These women were called the "mothers of Vietnam." They had lost sons orhusbands in the war on the revolutionary, communist side. They were unassailable; the police couldn’tpass them.

To keep the protesters from completely destroying the hugely expensive gate, Vietnam’s prime ministergot on the phone from up north in Hanoi.

"They negotiated a deal where they would open up the gates and let the saltwater to flow back in.That satisfied the protesters and they dispersed. Since then the gate has been open, pretty much," saysGorman.

Better community engagement, that factors in the economic realities for locals, can prevent big,expensive projects like this gate from failing. And there will be more and more big projects, as theMekong delta faces sea level rise. If the sea rises one meter — about 3 feet — the UN Refugee Agency

Ut and Manh describe the protests against thesalinity control gate that cut off salt water fromshrimp ponds.Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

says seven million people will have to move.

Professor Le Anh Tuan studies water management at the Dragon Institute in the delta. His focus issmaller pilot projects with local farmers. Can they store more rainwater for rice? Or do a mix a riceand shrimp, so they don't turn the soil too salty? His department gets farmers together.

"Usually we try to do it from bottom up. The farmers come to have their own discussions," saysprofessor Tuan.

The scientists just listen and explain. Which options will entail which consequences? They try things, alittle at a time, see the results. This approach doesn't assume any particular outcome is bad if it's whatpeople want.

Saltwater may keep locals from growing more rice, or may even swallow their homes in a storm oneday, but it’s also a valuable resource.

The Mekong delta’s rice growing land shown in a color­altered image taken from space.Credit European Space Agency

Riding along a coastal highway with Gorman, we stop short at a mansion under construction. It has asort of family crest. The owners’ initials, with two shrimp and a pot of gold between them.

The wife is there, tells us about the home, but doesn’t want to give her name. It’s surrounded by adozen or so big shrimp ponds, brown pits lined with thick black plastic, and fans to aerate them. It isa big operation, says Gorman.

"I’m guessing $100,000, few hundred thousand a year here, which is a massive massive income forVietnam," he says.

We’re thinking new reality TV show: Shrimp Wives of the Mekong Delta. Gorman is thinking: climatechange.

"Those ponds back there probably used to be forest.What’s happened with this boom is it’s made this landvaluable," he says.

More valuable than leaving it as forest to protect thedelta from storms, even though, in 1997, a typhoon killedthousands of people here. And storms like that areexpected to increase.

There are other downsides: shrimp farming speeds updegradation of the land, turns the soil salty, and emits

Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

A shrimp farmer's family crest.Credit Jesse Hardman

pollutants. Plus, it’s risky. People often go bust and losetheir land when their shrimp fails, or the price drops.

Further inland, more construction. Not a house, but an excavator, digging a new shrimp pond. Thewoman on site, Sao Van, is in her traditional conical hat. She says her family has tried a few things onthis land: rice, a little bit of shrimp. But now, they're going all in.

"They’re digging this out so they can do shrimp all year,"Gorman explains.

Sao Van hopes the investment works and will fund herchildren’s education. They’ll likely leave the delta to gowork in the city, and she wants that for them.

This is social hydrology at work, says Gorman. Peoplehere largely understand the risk of rising water andstorms. They can take measures to adapt, like moving,gradually. Which might be more realistic than bigpromises and big protection.

"This traditional approach, fortress approach, build big infrastructure to keep the sea out… does thatreally make sense with climate change? To block that would be hundreds of billions, trillions to protectfrom severe long term sea level rise, would be nearly impossible," Gorman says.

Sao Van's family is digging a shrimp pond to adaptto the changing agriculture in the Mekong delta.Credit Jesse Hardman

Digging a shrimp pond to make the most of saltwater intrusion.Credit Jesse Hardman / WWNO

So rather than chase and raise huge sums of money for the nearly impossible, if some of the coast isgoing to be under water anyway, why not see what happens? It's a radical idea, especially with theurgent action messaging we're used to hearing around climate change.

But some of the experts we met in the Mekong delta think of it this way: people are like water. They’lltake the path of least resistance. Listen to them, and you can create ground­up solutions that helpthem get where they want to go, rather than forcing them — like a leveed river — into an engineeredroute.

This report was made possible with support from the Solutions Journalism Network.

Support for WWNO's Coastal Desk comes from the Walton Family Foundation, the Greater NewOrleans Foundation, and the Kabacoff Family Foundation.