NOLA Levee Construction Funds Diverted to Iraq War [View All]

[leveymg]

As shocking as it may seem, The New Orleans Times-Picayune has reported that improvements on the very levees that have given way were never carried out because Army Corps of Engineers funds were diverted to fund *'s war in Iraq.

I normally do not repost other people's diaries from other sites, unless asked, but getting this news out is just too important. - Mark

Accountability for Lake New Orleans (Updated) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/30/155725/944
by gfactor
Tue Aug 30th, 2005 at 12:57:25 PDT

SNIP

We can't hold anybody accountable for the hurricane that brought about this tragedy, but we can hold accountable the folks that didn't do all they could to possibly prevent a disaster like the levee breach. And this quote says it all:


"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

-- Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 8, 2004


SNIP

When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.

Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained...

Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.


You think New Orleans was not shouting loud and often enough about this problem? It gets worse:


There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:


That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.

But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said.


The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach.


And that breach is proceeding to make New Orleans into a modern-day Atlantis.

SNIP