PBS stations to air Deepwater Horizon restoration film about the Chenier Plain beginning in August

Published 6:23 pm Saturday, July 2, 2016

Special to The Leader

A film profiling the conservation challenges and opportunities in the Gulf of Mexico’s Chenier Plain coast will be part of This American Land’s sixth season beginning on PBS stations in mid-August.

The YouTube internet website is now hosting a 9-minute version called “Protecting the Chenier Plain” and a 13-minute version with extra Texas footage, called “Chenier Plain Video Director’s Cut.” Both can be viewed now on YouTube.

The Chenier Plain is a 5-million acre coastal ecoregion spanning Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas formed by ancient Mississippi River deltaic soils and characterized today by exceptional biodiversity and highly concentrated energy, shipping and national security assets.

Both films take the audience on a tour of natural coastal habitats and water quality issues that are the focus of state, local and federal officials, plus stakeholders, private landowners and industry representatives involved in Deepwater Horizon oil spill restoration.

The Chenier Plain has attracted attention in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because it offers “landscape scale” and “multi-state” restoration outcomes prioritized by state and federal plans for the use of oil spill fines to enhance natural and human resources with a “link to injury” and a “potential to benefit” the environment and economy of the Gulf of Mexico coastal states impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

This American Land is a leading conservation televised newsmagazine series airing on PBS stations in 122 media markets in 42 states reaching nearly 80% of the total U.S. market.

This American Land (TAL) www.thisamericanland.org, focuses on critical issues affecting conservation. TAL is produced by the Environmental News Trust, a non-profit media company with a mission to raise awareness and support for conservation.

The Chenier Plain Alliance is a voluntary association of three Southwest Louisiana parishes, Calcasieu, Cameron and Vermilion and three Southeast Texas counties, Chambers, Jefferson and Orange that are cooperating to bring national attention to the Chenier Plain region.