Re: Lake NOrleans Refills Again

"Ann" <nntpmail@xxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:pan.2005.09.27.11.18.42.379704@xxxxxxxx:

> On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 06:18:18 +0000, Bud Hufstetler wrote:
>
>> Janet Baraclough <janet.and.john@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>> news:3130303039303239433835D327@xxxxxxxxxxxx:
>>
>>> On footage I saw, the Dutch defences that face most pressure
>>> from
>>> high surges, are designed to let a certain amount of flow pass
>>> through underneath; this reduces turbulence which could otherwise
>>> destroy the whole structure. The flow that's permitted through is
>>> then dispersed elsewhere..maybe what you're referring to.
>>>
>>
>> Today's Wall Street Journal reports construction began in New Orleans
>> on a similar system in the 1970s, but was stopped after a lawsuit by
>> environmentalists resulted in an injunction that sent the project
>> back for more environmental review.
>> http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112769984088951774,00.html
>>
>> Bud
>
> Please post at least the title of the article so those of us who
> aren't paid subscribers to the WSJ can try to find it elsewhere. An
> injunction would just stop work until the review was done (or until it
> was overturned by a higher court).
>

My mistake, I mistakenly assumed that article was available at no charge
to non-subscribers on WSJ's opinionjournal.com. I'm sorry about that.
Here's another article that covers the same incident and provides enopugh
information to research both the pros and cons:
<quote>
Greens Blocked Plan That May Have Saved New Orleans

by Amanda B. Carpenter
Posted Sep 16, 2005
A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project designed to prevent a Category 5-
hurricane-storm surge from filling Lake Pontchartrain and flooding New
Orleans was blocked by environmentalists intent on preserving ?natural
water flow? in 1977.

Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) used a lawsuit against the Corps based on the
National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) to halt the Lake
Pontchartrain Hurricane Protection Project.
NEPA, enacted in 1970, requires federal agencies to identify, through
public hearings and environmental impact statements, all real and
potentially harmful environmental effects of government projects. It also
authorizes private groups, such as SOWL, to file lawsuits to enforce
these provisions.

SOWL?s argument against the Corps? Lake Ponchartrain project claimed the
Corps? environmental impact statement was inadequate. U.S. District Judge
Charles Schwartz, Jr., agreed, issuing an injunction prohibiting the
project. ?Testimony reveals serious questions as to the adequacy of cost-
benefit analysis of the plan,? he wrote in his opinion. ?It is the
opinion of the court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they
and in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the
barrier project based on the August 1974 FEIS [Federal Environmental
Impact Study] is allowed to continue.? Schwartz also ruled that
associated flood prevention plans in Chalmette and New Orleans East must
be stopped.

Protecting Wetlands
U.S. Attorney Gerald Gallinghouse, who represented the Corps, argued the
project should be exempt from environmental standards because it was
?necessary to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane.?

The project would have built flood gates to block storm surges from
moving into Lake Pontchartrain from the Gulf of Mexico, and also would
have built additional levees in flood-prone areas. It had been drafted in
the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1964, and authorized as part of the
Flood Control Act, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, five
years before NEPA came into effect.

Johannes Westerink, a civil engineering professor at Notre Dame who
specializes in hurricane storm surge prediction for the Corps, the Navy
and a number of states, including Louisiana, believes the 1977 project
would have stopped the mean water level in Lake Pontchartrain from
rising. ?If you had the gates there [from the canceled project], you
would stop that water from being pushed into Lake Pontchartrain,? he
said.
On its website, where it tells the story of its fight to stop the
project, SOWL says, ?under the guise of hurricane protection, [the plan]
would destroy Lake Pontchartrain, drain the wetlands of New Orleans East
and promote development in newly drained areas.? SOWL also said it would
?create hundreds of millions of dollars in dredging contracts for the
cronies of the Orleans levee board.?

Former Rep. Bob Livingston (R.-La.) blames environmentalist groups for
consistently thwarting disaster prevention plans in the New Orleans area.
?Environmentalists have attacked the Corps at every turn, and have
systematically tried to undermine their mission,? he said. ?They have
instigated lawsuits consistently over the years, and have attacked the
Corps? role in the media as pork barrel politics. We are now seeing that
their idea of ?pork? was really the survival and livelihood of millions
of people.?

In 1986, nine years after they had been blocked in court, the Corps
formally dropped the Lake Ponchartrain Hurricane Protection Project as
part of a compromise with environmentalists that allowed the Corps to
raise the levees around St. Bernard, Orleans, East Jefferson and St.
Charles parishes. But the levee-raising program was not designed to
protect the area against anything stronger than a Category 3 storm.

Birds and Bears
The House Task Force on Improving National Environmental Policy said NEPA
lawsuits have prevented protection plans in New Orleans at least twice.
In addition to the 1977 SOWL suit, the task force cited a 1996 suit
brought against the Corps by the Sierra Club to stop a plan to raise and
fortify Mississippi River levees. This suit argued that the Corps had not
considered ?the impact on bottomland hardwood forest wetlands? and the
effect on Louisiana black bears and bird breeding.

SOWL?s website says it ?fought bitterly against the United States Army
Corps of Engineers.?
?Since 1974,? it says, ?SOWL has consistently put pressure and exposed
the Corps, New Orleans Division, for blatant and reckless issuance of
permits that are ecologically disastrous.?
</quote>
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9104

Bud

.

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