Re: "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"

Title: Re: "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
I came in here for Country Music, and was quickly reminded why I don't visit here anymore.  But as long as I'm here, I may as well post another viewpoint to the nonsense put forth by Blumenthal.

I wonder how all those Louisiana Black Bears are faring today.
_________________
September 08, 2005, 8:24 a.m.
Destructive river-management philosophy.
By John Berlau

With all that has happened in the state, it¹s understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group is ³working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,² which adjoins the Mississippi River not far from New Orleans, ³wet and wild.²

These words may seem especially inappropriate after the breaking of the levee that caused the tragic events in New Orleans last week. But ³wet and wild² has a larger significance in light of those events, and so does the group using the phrase. The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.

The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because ³a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.²

But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at ³the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands.² The lawsuit stated, ³Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.² In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations.

The lawsuit was settled in 1997 with the Corps agreeing to hold off on some work while doing an additional two-year environmental impact study. Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain.

But it is just one illustration of a destructive river-management philosophy that took hold in the ?90s, influenced the Clinton administration, and had serious policy consequences. Put simply, it¹s impossible to understand the delays in building levees without being aware of the opposition of the environmental groups to dams, levees, and anything that interfered with the ³natural² river flow. The group American Rivers, which leads coalitions of eco-groups on river policy, has for years actually called its campaign, ³Rivers Unplugged.²

Over the past few years, levees came to occupy the same status for environmental groups as roads in forests ? an artificial barrier to nature. They frequently campaigned against levees being built and shored up on the nation¹s rivers, including on the Mississippi.

In 2000, American Rivers¹ Mississippi River Regional Representative Jeffrey Stein complained in a congressional hearing that the river¹s ³levees that temporarily protect floodplain farms have reduced the frequency, extent and magnitude of high flows, robbing the river of its ability ? to sustain itself..² Similarly, the National Audubon Society, referring specifically to Louisiana, has this statement slamming levees on its website, ³Levees have cut off freshwater flows, harming fishing and creating salt water intrusion.² The left-leaning Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, in describing a grant it gave to Environmental Defense, blasted ³the numerous levees and canals built on the lower Mississippi River² because ³such structures disrupt the natural flows of the Mississippi River¹s sediments.²

Some went beyond opposition to building or repairing levees. At an Army Corps of Engineers meeting concerning the Mississippi River in 2002, Audubon official Dan McGuiness even recommended ³looking at opportunities to lower or remove levees [emphasis added]² from the river.

The groups argued that the ³natural² way would lead to better river management, but it was clear they had other agendas in mind besides flood control. They were concerned because levees were allegedly threatening their beloved exotic animals and plants. In his testimony, American Rivers¹s Stein noted that the Mississippi River was home to ³double-crested cormorant, rare orchids, and many other species,² which he implied were put at risk by man-made levees.

So far the environmental movement¹s role in the events leading to the flooding has been little discussed. One exception is former Rep. Bob Livingston (R., La.), who told Fox News on Saturday that environmentalists were one of the major reasons levee projects were held up.

At this point, there are still questions about the particular levees that broke in New Orleans. Care should be taken about drawing direct conclusions about the causes until there are more facts. But there are some important points that are clear that should put in perspective about levee funding and flood control.

Nearly all flood-control projects ? even relatively small ones ? are subject to a variety of assessments for effects on wetlands, endangered species, and other environmental concerns. These reviews can be costly and delay projects by years. In the ?90s, for instance, the Clinton administration¹s Environmental Protection Agency required a comprehensive environmental impact statement just to repair a few Colorado River levees that had been destroyed in the floods of 1993.

The Clinton administration would frequently side with environmentalists on flood-control projects, even against local Democrats. The Army Corps of Engineers under Clinton began implementing a planned ³spring rise² of the Missouri River that would raise water levels on the Missouri River during part of the year. This was supported by eco-groups, who argued that this restored the river¹s natural flows and protected a bird called the piping plover. But farm groups and others said that combined with the ice melting from winter, the project could increase the risk of flooding in river communities and affect more than 1 million acres of productive farmland. Nearly all the Republicans and Democrats in Missouri¹s congressional delegation opposed the plan, as did Missouri¹s late Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan. But the Clinton administration refused to budge, and this was a major factor in Bush¹s carrying of Missouri in 2000.

The Bush administration¹s flood-control efforts were often relentlessly opposed by environmental groups, and this opposition was frequently echoed by liberal activists and in the press. Bush kept his promise, and his appointees at the Corps of Engineers have stopped the ³spring rise² plan that concerned so many about flooding. Environmentalists launched a barrage of criticism and a series of lawsuits. This was also the case with Bush¹s moves to stop the Clinton administration¹s plans to breach the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the northwest. Even though the dams greatly help to control flooding in the region, American Rivers blasted the administration for failing to do enough to save the sockeye salmon native to the region.

Ironically, among those criticizing Bush for his actions to prevent flooding of the Missouri River was the ever-present anti-Bush environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He chastised Bush in 2004 for ³managing the flow of the Missouri River.² If, before Katrina, Bush had proceeded full-speed ahead and fortified the levees of the Mississippi for a Category 5 hurricane, Kennedy and others of his ilk would very likely have criticized Bush for trying to manage the natural flow of the Mississippi. And it¹s a good bet that many of the lefty bloggers now critical of Bush for not reinforcing the levees would have cited Bush¹s levee fortification as another way he was despoiling the natural environment.

? John Berlau is the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.



> From: Jorge Bushzales <jorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western
> Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 23:16:58 GMT
> Subject: "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
>
> "No One Can Say they Didn't See it Coming"
>
> By Sidney Blumenthal
>
> 09/01/05 "Der Spiegel" -- -- In 2001, FEMA warned that a hurricane
> striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the
> U.S. But the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding
> by 44 percent to pay for the Iraq war.
>
> Biblical in its uncontrolled rage and scope, Hurricane Katrina has left
> millions of Americans to scavenge for food and shelter and hundreds to
> thousands reportedly dead. With its main levee broken, the evacuated
> city of New Orleans has become part of the Gulf of Mexico. But the
> damage wrought by the hurricane may not entirely be the result of an act
> of nature.
>
> A year ago the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to study how New
> Orleans could be protected from a catastrophic hurricane, but the Bush
> administration ordered that the research not be undertaken. After a
> flood killed six people in 1995, Congress created the Southeast
> Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, in which the Corps of Engineers
> strengthened and renovated levees and pumping stations. In early 2001,
> the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a report stating that a
> hurricane striking New Orleans was one of the three most likely
> disasters in the U.S., including a terrorist attack on New York City.
> But by 2003 the federal funding for the flood control project
> essentially dried up as it was drained into the Iraq war. In 2004, the
> Bush administration cut funding requested by the New Orleans district of
> the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake
> Pontchartrain by more than 80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning
> of this year (for a total reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since
> 2001) forced the New Orleans district of the Corps to impose a hiring
> freeze. The Senate had debated adding funds for fixing New Orleans'
> levees, but it was too late.
>
> The New Orleans Times-Picayune, which before the hurricane published a
> series on the federal funding problem, and whose presses are now
> underwater, reported online: "No one can say they didn't see it coming
> ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions
> are being asked about the lack of preparation."
>
> The Bush administration's policy of turning over wetlands to developers
> almost certainly also contributed to the heightened level of the storm
> surge. In 1990, a federal task force began restoring lost wetlands
> surrounding New Orleans. Every two miles of wetland between the Crescent
> City and the Gulf reduces a surge by half a foot. Bush had promised "no
> net loss" of wetlands, a policy launched by his father's administration
> and bolstered by President Clinton. But he reversed his approach in
> 2003, unleashing the developers. The Army Corps of Engineers and the
> Environmental Protection Agency then announced they could no longer
> protect wetlands unless they were somehow related to interstate commerce.
>
> In response to this potential crisis, four leading environmental groups
> conducted a joint expert study, concluding in 2004 that without wetlands
> protection New Orleans could be devastated by an ordinary, much less a
> Category 4 or 5, hurricane. "There's no way to describe how mindless a
> policy that is when it comes to wetlands protection," said one of the
> report's authors. The chairman of the White House's Council on
> Environmental Quality dismissed the study as "highly questionable," and
> boasted, "Everybody loves what we're doing."
>
> "My administration's climate change policy will be science based,"
> President Bush declared in June 2001. But in 2002, when the
> Environmental Protection Agency submitted a study on global warming to
> the United Nations reflecting its expert research, Bush derided it as "a
> report put out by a bureaucracy," and excised the climate change
> assessment from the agency's annual report. The next year, when the EPA
> issued its first comprehensive "Report on the Environment," stating,
> "Climate change has global consequences for human health and the
> environment," the White House simply demanded removal of the line and
> all similar conclusions. At the G-8 meeting in Scotland this year, Bush
> successfully stymied any common action on global warming. Scientists,
> meanwhile, have continued to accumulate impressive data on the rising
> temperature of the oceans, which has produced more severe hurricanes.
>
> In February 2004, 60 of the nation's leading scientists, including 20
> Nobel laureates, warned in a statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity
> in Policymaking": "Successful application of science has played a large
> part in the policies that have made the United States of America the
> world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous
> and healthy ... Indeed, this principle has long been adhered to by
> presidents and administrations of both parties in forming and
> implementing policies. The administration of George W. Bush has,
> however, disregarded this principle ... The distortion of scientific
> knowledge for partisan political ends must cease." Bush completely
> ignored this statement.
>
> In the two weeks preceding the storm in the Gulf, the trumping of
> science by ideology and expertise by special interests accelerated. The
> Federal Drug Administration announced that it was postponing sale of the
> morning-after contraceptive pill, despite overwhelming scientific
> evidence of its safety and its approval by the FDA's scientific advisory
> board. The United Nations special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa accused
> the Bush administration of responsibility for a condom shortage in
> Uganda -- the result of the administration's evangelical Christian
> agenda of "abstinence." When the chief of the Bureau of Justice
> Statistics in the Justice Department was ordered by the White House to
> delete its study that African-Americans and other minorities are subject
> to racial profiling in police traffic stops and he refused to buckle
> under, he was forced out of his job. When the Army Corps of Engineers'
> chief contracting oversight analyst objected to a $7 billion no-bid
> contract awarded for work in Iraq to Halliburton (the firm at which Vice
> President Cheney was formerly CEO), she was demoted despite her superior
> professional ratings. At the National Park Service, a former Cheney
> aide, a political appointee lacking professional background, drew up a
> plan to overturn past environmental practices and prohibit any mention
> of evolution while allowing sale of religious materials through the Park
> Service.
>
> On the day the levees burst in New Orleans, Bush delivered a speech in
> Colorado comparing the Iraq war to World War II and himself to Franklin
> D. Roosevelt: "And he knew that the best way to bring peace and
> stability to the region was by bringing freedom to Japan." Bush had
> boarded his very own "Streetcar Named Desire."
>
> Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President
> Clinton and the author of "The Clinton Wars," is writing a column for
> Salon and the Guardian of London.

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