Why the Feds Should Pay to Protect New Orleans -- And It's Not Me Saying So

No, it's John Barry, author of the seminal study of the 1927 New Orleans flood, Rising Tide, in an Op-Ed in, of all places, the LA Times (yes, they're still publishing). Barry is elucidating the historical view, in which "improvements" to the Missouri and Upper Mississippi River systems had predictable but baleful effects on the wetlands that act as New Orleans' hurricane buffer (along with the canals and pipelines of the energy companies that criss-crossed the wetlands as they disrupted the area's hydrology). Barry is not making the "you broke it, you fix it" argument relative to the Corps of Engineers' poor design and construction work on the "hurricane protection system" that catastrophically failed in 2005; his timeframe goes back decades.

Prediction: Such an explanation, while fascinating and provocative, is, like the Corps of Engineers failure, doomed not to ignite the political will to deal with the problem for one major reason: since members of both political parties, over decades, are involved in these decisions, nobody gets to score partisan points with this stuff. Therefore, it's ignored.

Comments

[JAUG]

Hmm, I'm waiting for the water riots between Nevada and California.
Like the one being waged between Atlanta and Florida.

Is it all about who screams the loudest?
Or where the most votes are?

Every - yes every American City can suffer like New Orleans and be treated like a third world

You've been warned.

[SoulDrift]

Atlanta is a heavily conservative metro area. They won't be left out to dry.

[haleywins]

As Barry stated:

"The Bush administration, instead of recognizing that hurricane protection for Louisiana is an urgent NATIONAL PROBLEM, is treating this protection as if it were a routine local economic development project."

As long as the White House and those on the right in Congress are allowed, through the media, to continue to claim this as only about New Orleans, the American public will fail to see how a national solution is needed.. As an aside, the Army Corps of Engineers, has a Federal mission funded with Federal dollars, as well is preceded by U.S., not NOLA.

Unless someone other than McCain(who voted several times against Katrina related aid) becomes president, count on lack of proper funding and recognition of a national issue to only get worse.

[newslamp]

Barry's "trickle-down" argument is fascinating. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. Unfortunately, as you say, no one cares. You are a voice "crying out in the wilderness," Harry. I'll keep listening, even if no one else does. Maybe after the election. . . .

[startrekchess]

Oh, chill out already, Harry. It's JazzFest. Go read a newspaper, maybe one of the ones the Corps subcontractor stuffed the levees with: http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl042408tpleveepaper.98095b74.html

[Bienville]

That newspaper could only be about JazzFest 2006, since they haven't stuffed newer newspapers into the floodwall yet.

They are truly building the floodwalls of papier mache, sort of like the Mardi Gras floats that mock the Corps. Who knew they would so accurately depict the quality of the actual construction?

I wonder which public works protecting which other cities are also built of papier mache, and whether the wise residents of those cities - who would deign to advise New Orleans of her faults - are aware of their deficient protection.

[jmad]

the rising tide of global warming will overcome any efforts to protect N.O.
Turn it back to swamp

[professor]

Notwithstanding the preceding insult-to-our-intelligence-not-worthy-of-rejoinder "post," a lugubrious irony sits (squatting like the afore-unmentioned troll, infiltrating like a silver-nitrate lining, thrifty as a saving grace) within the chuckleheadedly clueless but sadly ubiquitous misconception that Hurricane Katrina "caused" the rape of New Orleans: the rape of New Orleans made them all think that global warming could get them. Go figure.

[DLSteinhardt]

And where do you live? Do you think nature can't catch up wherever that is too?

One major reason we have a federal government is to protect us.

The levees weren't built right. If they had been, much of NOLA wouldn't have been destroyed.

Because if we're talking about cities built where no city should ever be built, let's first turn Los Angeles and Las Vegas back into desert wastelands!

[Bienville]

Every city should be leveled by that logic.

No city has the capacity to support itself from its own water supply, its own food supply, its own energy supply and any number of other resources that are imported into every city. Likewise, forests, farms, lakes and any number of other land uses that might support a less urbanized system are destroyed to build every city ever constructed.

[Steve]

Bienville hits it on the head, but probably unintentionally: "Likewise, forests, farms, lakes and any number of other land uses that might support a less urbanized system are destroyed to build every city ever constructed."

Our modern way of life is almost by definition unsustainable. We need to stop spending our resources as if there's no tomorrow -- or, eventually, there will be none.

While I make no specific predictions, it is obvious that growth cannot go on forever, the principles of conservation of energy and matter and the three laws of thermodynamics (You can't win, you can't even break even, and you gotta play) must eventually catch up with our profligacy.

As we rapidly approach a 6 degree C (10.8 degree F) hotter future, ecological systems upon which we depend will rapidly and catastrophically break down, leading to mass migrations, mass starvation, and, most probably, mass casualties in wars over basic resources and even habitable living space.

See Mark Lynas's _Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet_

http://www.marklynas.org/2007/2/3/six-degrees

for further information.

Rebuilding New Orleans, frankly, is the least of our worries.

[WilliePilgrim]

If NOLA is to be a permanent city on the American Landscape perhaps we should spend the long-term kind of money on it and move it to a place where the original buildings are placed onto a platform where its ultimate goal in the context of human history is not a perpetual struggle. This is not an unprecedented approach to the survival of cities and may prove to be a more common one as sealevels change due to global warming (regardless the casue) and for human lack of understanding of the dynamics of coastal subsidence which is inevitable once the land is taken out of the natural system that created the land in the first place. It would cost billions, hundreds of billions, and worth every penny when one considers the contribution our cities, especially cultural cities like New Orleans, make to our nation. In the mean time new urban centers need to be designed in new ways that avoid these situations in the future. Plan ahead for a change.

[Durango]

I thought one of the problems (not mentioned) was the mining of shells from the Barrier Island for road construction. And with the destruction of the Barrier Islands came increased erosion from the sea.

John Barry's "Rising Tide" is one of the best books I have ever read. Best written and most interesting. A rare combination.

Right up there with Cadillac Desert.

[Bienville]

I hadn't heard that. It seems like a pretty hard way to get shells when there are deposits accessible by land. Something dated from 1992 told me that Louisiana banned shell mining from public waters before that time (maybe long before). You might be surprised by how little shell base you'd need for a road - but maybe not; barrier islands and wetlands are pretty fragile things, so I might be surprised by how little mining would ruin them.

In any case, several causes for loss of wetlands and barrier islands are discussed here, and shell-mining isn't one of them:
http://www.americaswetlandresources.com/background_facts/detailedstory/causes.html

[rich3324]

Harry, you need to stop blaming the COE for the drowning of New Orleans, here is the answer:

"Pastor John Hagee " whose endorsement Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said this past Sunday he was "glad to have" " told NPR"s Terry Gross that "Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." "New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God," Hagee said, because "there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came."

[Bienville]

Perhaps that's why God destroyed so many churches and left the most decadent part of the City (the French Quarter) undamaged.

[DLSteinhardt]

And that's why acts of God destroy New York City every Halloween.

[Steve]

If Barry's time frame goes back only decades, he's off by an order of magnitude.

We've been turning the Mississippi River into the Mississippi Canal for about three centuries.

Read Ari Kelman's _A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans_ (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9803.php) and you will understand why human built levees aren't the answer.

[Tiggy]

When the Mississippi was damned the natural process that created New Orleans was altered. Basically, the sediment overflow from the Mississippi is what created the land. In damning the Mississippi buildup ceased, only the natural process of erosion remained. This combination of lack of sedimentation and continued erosion is what led to the land level being extremely low or below sea level. So, it is a combination of mother nature and mans' interference. Personally, I find the major culprit to be those who did not plan in the event of a damn breach. They had to have known how catastrophic the results would be. After all, they have the best of technology at their disposal. It is as if they gambled with human lives. If it were a business who had done such, criminal and civil charges would fill the court docket for years to come. So yes, the government should step in and clean up their mess. Yet, like always, they hold themselves exempt from accountability.

[milo9]

Now I see how the funding was strangled. So much for Iraq, so little for New Orleans, it was pretty disturbing.

[mamacat]

"You broke it, you fix it."
If only Republicans would use that argument to fix things in this country. I guess the president who played guitar while New Orleanians drowned doesn't care about things like logic.

[LizM]

I have to thank you for the heads up on that op-ed!

Let's hope that your prediction is dead wrong...but you are probably right. You're definitely bang on about the lack of progress on this issue being due to a lack of political will because the cost certainly isn't the problem or even prohibitive, in the grand scheme of things.

It's just so hard to wrap my mind around the fact that the powers that be seem so willing to let a great American city be devoured by the sea without even putting up a fight. I just don't get it. It sure doesn't bode well for the long term survival of other coastal cities that, while they are not in the same precarious circumstance that the Crescent City finds itself in, are equally vulnerable in their own ways...like, say...Los Angeles or Miami or any number of others.

[SoulDrift]

I doubt they view it as a "great American city," sadly. They probably look at it as poverty-stricken (true) and Democratic leaning (true) as if those facts keep it from qualifying for the list of American cities that should be protected.

Sad.

[StinkyPete]

I am under the impression that structures that are in flood basins, flood plains, wetlands, etc that are damaged or destroyed are not permitted to rebuild. New construction in these areas is prohibited, so is rebuilding. This is an issue of Environmental Law - issuing waivers or exceptions here will allow them everywhere.
Be careful what you wish for.

[LizM]

Restore or Retreat!

I'm wishing that the government - all levels of it - will finally get serious about what needs to be done, before it's too late, and implement a comprehensive plan of action for the restoration of the coastal wetlands and barrier islands of southern Louisiana OR cease and desist from encouraging citizens back to the city and rebuilding communities in the most vulnerable areas. Because that is just inviting another disaster and is nothing short of criminal negligence and a reckless disregard for human life.

[Bienville]

Two passages from John Barry's Op-Ed deserve repeating here:

"Although the energy and shipping industries primarily benefit the entire country, Louisiana does gain economically -- as it does from levees -- so one could argue the state has made a devil's bargain. Yet the dams and reservoirs that provide important benefits -- ironically including flood protection -- to states from the Upper Midwest to the High Plains enormously increase the danger to New Orleans, coastal Louisiana and part of Mississippi, but give nothing to them."
...
"So far, policymakers have not seen the problem as a whole, and they largely perceive federal assistance as generosity. That's the wrong way of looking at it. Given that benefits to states throughout the Mississippi Valley actually created the problem, federal funding is not generosity. It's equity."

I can think of nothing to add to what he has said so well.