Isaac renews old debate about Louisiana levees
Posted: Friday, August 31, 2012 5:23 pm | Updated: 7:24 pm, Fri Aug 31, 2012.
http://www.wdtimes.com/news/national/article_506565d4-8725-531d-b056-e650835c4eeb.html
Associated Press
When Hurricane Isaac whirled into the Gulf Coast this week, the federal levee system protecting New Orleans did its job. But the patchwork of floodwalls shielding subdivisions outside the city and rural fishing and farming communities was no match for the drenching storm. As the cleanup began Friday, an old debate grew more urgent: Is it worth billions of dollars to build better levees in areas that are sparsely populated and naturally flood-prone? Since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Army Corps of Engineers has backed away from the idea of extending protection across much of south Louisiana, citing doubts about whether improved levees would work and whether the money could be better spent elsewhere.
None of that sits well with locals, who feel abandoned.
"Each time you have a hurricane, you are going to spend enormous amounts of money on search and rescue, rebuilding churches, schools, everything, just like right here in Ironton," said Charles J. Ballay, district attorney of Plaquemines Parish, as he rode atop an airboat looking for stranded residents. "This was a Category 1 storm and look at what it has done."
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About 1 million people in coastal Louisiana live outside the massive levee system that protects greater New Orleans, and almost all of them are at risk of flooding during a major storm. For decades, Louisiana has pressed the federal government to erect larger, stronger levees in areas vulnerable to hurricanes. The calls for better protection intensified after Isaac. "These people don't deserve this," Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu told WVUE-TV near Braithwaite, a community flooded to the rooftops when a nearby non-federal levee was overwhelmed by Isaac's storm surge. "We have to fight harder and stronger for protection for everyone. You know, on one side of the levee it's completely dry. Houses are safe. Families are going back to normal. And on the other side, it's a nightmare." Matt Ranatza, a farmer in Jesuit Bend, a town left out of the federal system in Plaquemines, said the situation makes him "insane." "There's a perfectly good levee right behind my house that they could have fixed, and that's the levee that was in danger of overtopping," he said. "For them to just say we're not going to do it there is criminal."
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Besides that, the Louisiana coast is steadily eroding due to rising sea levels, oil drilling and even levee building that stops spring floods from replenishing marshes. The state has lost about 1,900 square miles of land since the 1930s, and scientists warn that more will follow. Paul Kemp, a coastal geologist who heads the National Audubon Society's Gulf Coast Initiative, said many people in Louisiana are drawing back from the coast and behind the better levees systems. "Look at Plaquemines since Katrina," Kemp said. "It has not been rebuilt. It's a bunch of trailers. That's what the future holds: People will have a house behind the levee and then have something more disposable outside the levees."
= new reply since forum marked as read
Here's how the British hold back the waters from flooding London:
And the Dutch solution to protecting an entire nation that mostly rests below sea level:
The Italians are defending their city on the sea, Venice:
And...
Here's how the richest, most powerful and technologically advanced
nation on earth protected against the long-forecasted flooding of New Orleans:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0112-15.htm
That did it's job preventing any flooding in the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish...and ranks with those other barriers...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IHNC_Lake_Borgne_Surge_Barrier
and there are LOTS of people & businesses that will (not might) be affected when these fail..
http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/blog/morning-roundup/2012/08/sacramento-levees-fail-federal.html
Sacramento levees fail federal maintenance standards
Sacramento Business Journal
Date: Friday, August 24, 2012, 6:20am PDT
Levee work along the Sacramento and American rivers has been ongoing for years.
Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal
Levee work along the Sacramento and American rivers has been ongoing for years. Levees protecting most of the city of Sacramento and 15 other areas of the Central Valley were declared on Thursday to have failed federal maintenance criteria, according to The Sacramento Bee. That declaration comes with a cost: Those levees are no longer eligible for federal money to rebuild if damaged in a storm.
The affected areas include 40 miles of levees wrapping most of the city of Sacramento on the American and Sacramento rivers. This system of levees includes the south bank of the American River from about Bradshaw Road downstream to the confluence with the Sacramento River, then downstream from there nearly to Courtland. ...
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