The levees were sinking.... and could be repaired.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

How much have we spent "rebuilding Iraq" so to speak??

http://alternet.org/story/24871/

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "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."

That June, with the 2004 hurricane seasion starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for $2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004 Times-Picayune:

"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," he said. "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."

The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

[Divernan]

1. Correct your misleading heading: Article says levees COULD be repaired

by raising the height of them. In fact, I didn't see any language matching what you have in quotes in your heading. It's a powerful and good article condemning Bush - compares him to a riverboat gambler who chose to cut taxes and throw money into Iraq to protect Americans, but he lost big time

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Exactly, and fair enough.... edited and corrected.

[Skidmore]

3. The Norquist Bathtubbers drowned NO in the tub over a measly

$17M. A small investment that would have circumvented such a devastating toll in lost lives, billions in property, and infrastructure. This doesn't even get to the stab at America's soul and the implications for the nation as a whole. The port city of NO is valuable to the nation's commerce.

Grover Norquist should be hounded out of DC and made to serve on the body retrieval crews.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Don't forget about the cat tails in the Everglades... there is a threat

that MUST BE dealt with BEFORE anything is done for the poor folk. Yes, that says MULTI_BILLION.

http://everglades.fiu.edu/taskforce/comprehensive.html


1
The CS&F Project is a multi-billion public works project that provides flood control, water control, and water supply to South Florida, which stretches from Orlando to Florida Bay. In 1992, Congress directed the Corps to conduct a restudy to determine if the CS&F Project should be modified "due to significantly changed physical, biological, demographic, or economic conditions, with particular reference to modifying the project or its operation for improving the quality of the environment, improving protection of the aquifer, and improving the integrity, capability, and conservation of urban water supplies affected by the project or its operation." Water Resources Development Act of 1992, Section 309(1) (P.L. 102-580).

2