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<td><font size="5" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><strong>Breaks
in the Levee Logic</strong></font></td>
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<td><font size="1"
face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Duane D. Freese</font></td>
<td width="56" bgcolor="#d0d0d0"><font size="1"
face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Published </font></td>
<td width="70" bgcolor="#003366"><font color="#ffffff"
size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 09/02/2005 </font></td>
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<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><font face="Arial">The
news and opinion spin cycle is moving faster than the winds of a
category 4 hurricane. Barely have we had the opportunity to feel denial
about the terrible tragedy, feel sympathy for victims and begin lending
our support than we've leapt to the stage of recrimination: Who's to
blame?<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><font face="Arial">And the rush to judgment is
running ahead of appropriate investigation and facts. <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><a
href="http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">Will Bunch</font></b></a><font
face="Arial">, a senior writer at the <i style="">Philadelphia Daily
News</i>,
raised the question "Did the New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?"
He quoted Louisiana officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for
the New Orleans area in old <i style="">Tiimes-Picayune</i>'s stories
complaining about cuts by the Bush administration in federal funding
for levees and flood protection, particularly ACE's Alfred Naomi,
stating in June 2004: <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><span
style="color: black;"><br>
<font face="Arial">"The
system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is
sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then
we can't stay ahead of the settlement.<span style=""> </span>The
problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal
funds have dried up so that we can't raise them." <o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><i
style=""><span style="color: black;">The New York Times,</span></i><span
style="color: black;">
in its lead editorial Thursday titled "Waiting for a Leader,"
churlishly went after President Bush for his first speech which it
called terrible. It went on to pretend it knew what <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:place></st1:city>'
problem was -- a lack of federal funding. Specifically it called for
the House to restore $70 million in funds for the levees next year.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><i
style=""><span style="color: black;">The Washington Post</span></i><span
style="color: black;">,
in an editorial that talked about not casting blame now, nonetheless
couldn't resist casting some, saying the "president's most recent
budgets have actually proposed reducing funding for flood prevention in
the New Orleans area, and the administration has long ignored Louisiana
politicians' request for more help in protecting their fragile coast."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><i
style=""><span style="color: black;">USA Today</span></i><span
style="color: black;"> did a better job in a pair of edits -- <a
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-31-katrina-part-one_x.htm"><b><font
color="#339966">one on the disaster response</font></b></a> and one on
<a
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-31-katrina-part-two_x.htm"><b><font
color="#339966">the energy supply</font></b></a> -- by recognizing
that the state and local government had a roll in building <st1:state
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:place></st1:state>'s
infrastructure. On energy, it even went so far as to say some things
some anti-oil groups hate to hear -- how obstructionists to development
of new refineries, offshore and Alaskan energy supplies share the blame
for the nation's reliance on Gulf Coast supplies.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span
style="color: black;"><o:p><font face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><span
style="color: black;">But it, too, got caught up in the drumbeat about
the levees, arguing:<span style=""> </span>"[P]</span>eople living
along the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Gulf</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Coast</st1:placetype></st1:place> have grown
up hearing about what could happen if the 'big one' hit the region. <i
style="">Yet the levees weren't raised or strengthened sufficiently to
prevent flooding. </i>Initial plans for evacuating the city and
ensuring civil order were haphazard at best."</font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">Indeed,
if editorial writers had a comment to make it was to say something
about the levees.</font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">And
why not? The levees broke, didn't they? That's what helped mess up the
rescue effort, didn't it? And there were cuts in federal help, weren't
there?</font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">The
answers to all these questions are yes. But, the fact is, they miss an
important point, which <i style="">The New York Times</i>
editorialists might have discovered had they read their </font><a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/national/nationalspecial/01levee.html"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">own news story</font></b></a><font
face="Arial"> by Andrew Revkin and Christopher Drew. The reporters
quoted<span style=""> Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain
Institute for Environmental Studies at the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype
w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">New
Orleans</st1:placename></st1:place>, about how surprising it was that
the break in the levee was "a section that was just upgraded."</span></font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><span
style=""><o:p></o:p></span></font> </p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style=""><font
face="Arial">"It did not have an earthen levee," he told them. "It had
a vertical concrete wall several feet thick."<o:p></o:p></font></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style=""><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></span></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial"><span
style="">Worse for the editorial writers were statements by the chief
engineer of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lt. Gen Carl Strock: </span>"I
don't see that the level of funding was really a contributing factor in
this case. Had this project been fully complete, it is my opinion that
based on the intensity of this storm that the flooding of the business
district and the French Quarter would have still taken place."</font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">The
reason: the funding would only have completed an upgrade of the levees
to a protect against a level 3 hurricane. Katrina was a level 4 plus.</font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">And
the reasons for this goes back decades. </font></p>
<p class="inside-copy" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">Since
the 1930s, when levee building began in earnest, <st1:state w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:state>
has lost a million acres of its coastal wetlands, and faces the loss of
another 640,000 additional acres -- an area the size of <st1:state
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Rhode Island</st1:place></st1:state> --
by 2050.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">A
new study based on satellite measurement released in May found that the
wetlands area was sinking at a half-inch to two-inches a year as of
1995, or up to more than a 1.5 feet a decade.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">"If
subsidence continues and/or sea level rises and human action fails to
take place, the entire coast will be inundated," Roy Dokka of the
Louisiana Spatial Reference Center at Louisiana State University and an
author of the study </font><a
href="http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1121835742282890.xml?nola"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">noted in July</font></b></a><font
face="Arial">. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">And
he went on in a <i style="">Times-Picayune</i> piece that columnist
Bunch apparently failed to examine:</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><font
face="Arial">"The
current plans to save the coast are focused on fixing wetlands, which
is incredibly important, but the problem is that subsidence is
affecting the entire coast. We need to combine those plans with
regional hurricane levees and sand shoals. We have to find some way to
protect the people and valuable infrastructure we have on the coast."</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">This
echoes a point that was raised by the White House Office of Management
and Budget in a review of the Corps of Engineers levee and flood work
back in 2003. It </font><a
href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/pma/flooddamage.pdf"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">noted</font></b></a><font face="Arial">
that while the Corps managed projects that reduced flood damage to
specific areas, annual flood damages to the nation were increasing. As
such, it wanted the Corps -- though well-managed -- to broaden its
approach by coordinating with federal flood mitigation efforts -- to be
"more pro-active in preventing flood risks rather than reacting to
them."</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">The
regional Corps head so often quoted by the media himself said in 2003
that a project to protect the city from a category 4 or 5 storm would
take 30 years to complete, with the feasibility study alone costing $8
million and taking six years to complete. At the time he opined,
"Hopefully we won't have a major storm before then."</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><o:p><font
face="Arial"> </font></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">As
for the $14 billion plan called Coastal 2050 for wetlands restoration
that Louisiana politicians have been pushing for the last two years for
the federal government to provide a stream of funds -- up to 65% of the
cost -- some experts say it was only a stop-gap. </font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">"We
are not going to stop marsh loss. Subsidence is too dominant," James
Coleman, a professor of coastal studies at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename
w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">State</st1:placetype>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>, </font><a
href="http://www.nola.com/washingaway/costofsurvival_1.html"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">told the Times Picayune</font></b></a><font
face="Arial">
a few years ago. Coastal restoration "is a temporary fix in terms of
geological time. You will see results of massive coastal restorations
in our lifetime, but in the long run they are also going to go."</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">Indeed,
those interested in getting a taste of the complexity of New Orleans
situation, a good place to start is to read </font><a
href="http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline03/0603feat.html"><b><font
face="Arial" color="#339966">"The Creeping Storm"</font></b></a><font
face="Arial"> by Greg Brouer in the June 2003 <i style="">Civil
Engineering Magazine</i>:</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"><font
face="Arial">"During
the past 40 years, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has spent hundreds
of millions of dollars constructing a barrier around the low-lying city
of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">New Orleans</st1:city></st1:place>
to protect it from hurricanes. But is the system high enough? And can
any defense ultimately protect a city that is perpetually sinking -- in
some areas at a rate of half an inch (editor's note: Or up to 2 inches)
per year?"</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font face="Arial">We
know the answer to the first question now -- obviously not. The answer
to the second question will require more investigation. It would be
nice if some editorial writers would perform a little more. Snap
judgments in this situation are worse than no judgment at all.</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><font size="2"><em><font
face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">To see more of the extensive
coverage of Hurricane Katrina from TCS, click <a
href="http://www.techcentralstation.com/katrina.html"
target="_blank_blank">here</a>.</font></em></font></p>
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