After the Festival, the Celebration

New Orleans made the good kind of news this past week, reams of stories about Jazzfest, the wave of music overcoming the rainy deluges, and the consequent boost to the city's still-fragile economy.

What didn't make national news, though, was a court decision that has the potential for much greater long-term benefit to the city, especially some of its poorest residents. Last Friday, Federal judge Stanwood Duval--who did break out of the bubble when he ruled, earlier this year, that the Corps of Engineers couldn't be sued for damage caused by the collapse of its hurricane-protection structures--ruled that the Corps can indeed be sued for damage caused by its construction, starting in the 1950s, of the MRGO shipping canal. As the T-P story points out, the neighborhoods savaged by the funneling of Katrina's surge into the heart of the city were primarily lower-income areas: Eastern New Orleans, the Lower Ninth ward, and suburban St. Bernard Parish. Those would be the residents to get compensated should they prove their case.

So, for all those who've reflexively said, "You can't sue the Corps"--tell it to the judge.