[Vision2020] Down by the Levy

Fri Sep 2 02:37:51 PDT 2005

Well, Well an intelligent response that is actually in line with the truth!
Sometimes I think history must have started with GW and no one did anything
wrong before that...just him!
New Orleans has had trouble with its levees before. The city is built below
sea level. It is time to move it back and I don't care how 'special' the
city is. It has been done wrong for a long time. If the city, parish and
state knew this was a possibility why didn't they have a better plan?? Isn't
it just possible that the federal government isn't fully responsible for
everything? I am tired of everyone looking for us (me) to pay for and fix
the mistakes they have made for years. Here in this area we get an
occasional earthquake or a volcano that goes off and we don't really ask for
a lot of federal money to help us. BUT, other areas are always in my pocket
looking for help. I'd like to talk to the people who decided to put a
pipeline across the southern US...hurricanes, tornados etc. The
environmentalists who have stopped new refineries and not drilling in Anwar
are far more responsible for oil prices than Bush or any president is.
I do not believe that GW is any saint...I just  don't believe that history
will be nearly as critical of him as the New York Times or others are trying
to make us believe. I don't think thats a smirk I think of it as a smile.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Nisbet" <pcnisbet1 at hotmail.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2005 1:49 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Down by the Levy

Wow, the G-d like quality of GW Bush was never so clear to me than after
reading some of the response here on V2020.

http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline04/0704feat.html

So ole GW managed to set the stage for the wetlands removal of the
Mississippi Delta that began well over a hundred years ago, well prior to
the birth of his own father.  I have to say that is some power.

The Delta has been shrinking due to stupid moves that built the structures
that allowed people to build on subsiding ground with ever increasing
budgets spent on the US Army Corps of Engineers program in the area that
ended up in a frenzy of construction in FDR's day and GW was behind it all.

So why exactly are we going to mess with a guy who is able to have changed
the course of human development 100 years before he was born.  It's too
scary to contemplate.  If we mess with him he could rethink the events of
100 years ago and our parents will never have met.

Reality is that we have needed to rethink the policies of the US Army Corps
of Engineers for a long time.  I am amazed that certain people posting here
who have been part of the environmental movement for a day or two, would sit
here trying to lay blame on GW when they themselves have called for a halt
to the kinds of things that resulted in failure at this time.

Subsidence was happening as a normal course of natural events in the area of
New Orleans and without fresh sediments, it was only a matter of time before
the cobbled together system would fail.  There are some things that man's
best engineering can not accomplish and the true test of Planning at a local
level is to recognize what the limits of engineering are.  It has been long
established even clear back when I was going to school in Geology at the
University of Washington, that one day New Orleans would be flooded.  The
response has always been to build a bigger levy and then add more houses and
have more people move in.

Bush is being blamed for not funding a study that would have continued the
pattern of idiocy of building bigger and bigger levies.  The study would not
have built a single levy, it was just a study to suggest that they could
keep doing the same old stupid things and making the problem bigger with
each stupid thing they did.

The report that I posted above suggested that it was time to rethink our
actions and engineer real solutions that allowed the Delta natural
opportunities to rebuild.  But how politically can you tell people in New
Orleans that they need to look at changing the pattern of building they have
thought of as sacred?  How do you tell them that its time to get out and let
the river back in?  Who was going to pay for moving those folks out of long
term dangerously placed neighborhoods or tell the shippers it was time to
consider changing which port they used?

And what was really required was going to take 14 billion dollars and 30
years to accomplish, something it's very hard to convince people is a
worthwhile endeavor and which would have done nothing to save doomed New
Orleans.  Because no matter what scenario you try to concocte, New Orleans
was indeed doomed.

Let's say that Bush had passed Kyoto, given the Corps of Engineers money for
the 'study' of how to do something for a Cat 5 hurricane on levies and never
sent a single Guardsman to Iraq.  Well as Gomer Pyle used to say, "Surprise,
Surprise" that town would still be under water and the help and support they
need would still not be able to get in and the gangs that are sniping would
still be sniping.  The doom of that town was granted by the policies of the
last hundred years from both parties and all local politicians and
developers.

But instead of trying to point a finger at your favorite boogeyman, GW or
for myself and other GOP folks pointing to FDR or others over the years who
all contributed to the mistake, why not look at fixing it?

And Yes, Joan, that fix needs to include the Port of Lewiston and a whole
lot of other ports.  The reason for the mistake of channeling so much of our
commerce through New Orleans needs to be examined.  Tearing out every rail
connection into Lewiston to keep that Port from any growth needs to be
challenged.

And Yes, Tom, it was piss poor prior planning that's accumulated for over a
century.  If it had happened, as it very well could have, under Bill
Clinton, would you be yammering with the same voice?

So stop trying to make political hay and read up on what we are going to
need to do.  Those people who escaped from New Orleans need to become
members of other communities.  We need to look at never allowing that city
to be rebuilt in the same manner it was.  We need to see that we disperse
our shipping and other vital economic interests so that one disaster can not
put us into this sort of tail spin.  Because as surely as the sun rises, if
we just go back in, build bigger levies and move the folks back there, this
will just happen again.

Phil Nisbet

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