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Stronger New Orleans' levees could have high real estate and environmental cost Louisiana officials want government to pay total cost for stronger New Orleans levees Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com September 21, 2005 Today The Wall Street Journal published an article on proposals for improving the levees around New Orleans. The city's existing flood-control system, which was designed to handle up to a Category 3 hurricane, failed during Category 4 Katrina and New Orleans was swamped with flood water. The Wall Street Journal reports that Louisiana officials now believe that the federal government should pay for the entire construction of the stronger levees. The state's Department of Natural Resources "has asked the state's members of Congress to request $18.2 billion in federal funds for a variety of hurricane-protection projects and $14 billion to help restore wetlands that serve as a buffer zone against hurricanes." Some environmental groups have questioned whether the levee system of New Orleans may have actually increased the city's vulnerability to Katrina's storm surge by hastening the decline of wetland vegetation that usually buffers against rising floodwaters. America's Wetland, a Baton Rouge organization, estimates that More than 1,900 square miles of the Louisiana have disappeared since the 1930s due to development and the construction of levees and canals. This, coupled with the loss of barrier islands and stands of natural vegetation has made the New Orleans area more susceptible to storm surges. Sharon Begley, a science columnist for The Wall Street Journal, notes that studies have shown that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot. Jerry Mitchell, author of the The Clarion-Ledger article, notes that the email may be the result of someone noticing the Sept. 8 issue of National Review Online which
The corps settled the litigation in 1997, agreeing to hold off on some work until an environmental impact could be completed. The National Review article concluded: "Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain." The problem with that conclusion? The levees that broke causing New Orleans to flood weren't Mississippi River levees. They were levees that protected the city from Lake Pontchartrain levees on the other side of the city. When Katrina struck, the hurricane pushed tons of water from the Gulf of Mexico into Lake Pontchartrain, which borders the city to the north. Corps officials say the water from the lake cleared the levees by 3 feet. It was those floodwaters, they say, that caused the levees to degrade until they ruptured, causing 80 percent of New Orleans to flood. Related article: Environmental problems worsened Hurricane Katrina's impact - 31-August-2005 The loss of coastal marshlands that buffer New Orleans from flooding and storm surges may have worsened the impact of Hurricane Katrina. [an error occurred while processing this directive] This article used information and quotes from THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ["Supersizing the Levees" (September 21, 2005) By MICHAEL CORKERY and ANN CARRNS; and ], and The Clarion-Ledger ["E-mail suggests government seeking to blame groups" (September 16, 2005)By Jerry Mitchell]. News index | RSS | Add to MyYahoo! |
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