White House announces ($3.1 Billion) for levees

[Ian David]

White House announces billions for levees

Thursday, December 15, 2005; Posted: 1:09 p.m. EST (18:09 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush will request billions more to help rebuild the levee system in New Orleans, Louisiana, Donald Powell, the top federal official for reconstruction, announced Thursday.

"The levee system will be better and safer than it's ever been before," Powell said at the White House.

When asked if the levees would be built to withstand a Category 5 storm, officials used broader language instead, promising that the city's citizens would be safe and the levees would be "stronger and better."

<snip>

The announcement came after Bush met in the Oval Office with Powell, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the head of the Army Corps of Engineers.

<snip>

Gov. Kathleen Blanco and other Louisiana officials, as well as businesses and homeowners, have argued that the levees must be improved to protect against Category 5 storms if the New Orleans metropolitan area hopes to persuade people to return.

"These levees will be as high as 17 feet in some areas. We've never had that," he said. "We will have the holy trinity of recovery -- levees, housing and incentives."

More:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/bush.levees.ap/index.html

[bahrbearian]

1. 3 years too late .

The horse left the barn.

[imported_dem]

17. More like 30 years too late

If not even more.

[stepnw1f]

24. 30 Years Too Late?

So you mean the problem existed 26 years before Bush and no president tried to fund money for these levees?

[imported_dem]

29. The problem started before the levees were even built

http://www.saveourwetlands.org/weaksoil.html

Original soil tests and design documents for the 17th Street Canal flood wall show layers of weak soil under the wall's steel base that investigators believe gave way during Hurricane Katrina, likely causing the breach that flooded large portions of the city.

.....

The borings for the 17th Street Canal were done in 1981 by the Eustis Engineering, a Metairie firm. Those results and other documents were contained in case files from a dispute between the corps and the contractor that built the wall, A.E. Pittman Co. Those files were obtained by The Times-Picayune.

[olddad56]

30. Half a Trillion for an illegal invasion, 3 Billion for flood safety....

How many Amercian civilians have been killed, injured, or left homeless because of our illegal invasion of Iraq? How many troops were killed in New Orleans? Where would you want your tax dollars spent? On a real threat, or on an imaginary one. On prevention of floods like the one in N.O., or on the resulting clean-up after the fact.

[imported_dem]

34. Care to get back on the subject at hand

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/Archive/200509/NAT20050907a.html


......
By 1998, Louisiana's state government had a $2 billion construction budget, but less than one tenth of one percent of that -- $1.98 million -- was dedicated to levee improvements in the New Orleans area. State appropriators were able to find $22 million that year to renovate a new home for the Louisiana Supreme Court and $35 million for one phase of an expansion to the New Orleans convention center.

The following year, the state legislature did appropriate $49.5 million for levee improvements, but the proposed spending had to be allocated by the State Bond Commission before the projects could receive financing. The commission placed the levee improvements in the "Priority 5" category, among the projects least likely to receive full or immediate funding.

The Orleans Levee Board was also forced to defer $3.7 million in capital improvement projects in its 2001 budget after residents of the area rejected a proposed tax increase to fund its expanding operations. Long term deferments to nearly 60 projects, based on the revenue shortfall, totaled $47 million worth of work, including projects to shore up the floodwalls.

No new state money had been allocated to the area's hurricane protection projects as of October of 2002, leaving the available 65 percent federal matching funds for such construction untouched.

[Deja Q]

2. Rollin'... rollin'... rollin' on the deficit... ah-doo-doo-doo-doo...

$3.1 billion seems a lot. Will they tell us all the intricate details, or do we leave it at faith that every penny will be accounted for and that the new levees truly will be safe?

[iconoclastNYC]

5. The money will go to Halliburton I'm sure.

You raise a valid point. With these huge projects there isn't ever enoguht oversight to ensure that fraud waste and abuse are prevented. The Republicans solution is to turn to the magic of the "free market" via private contractors. Halliburton shows what a joke that is: it just makes it harder to know when the taxpayer is getting screwed and ensures the money finds it way back into our corrupt political system via cronyism and campaign contributions.

It seems to me like a good way to avoid fraud waste and abuse is to strenghten whistleblower laws and have competiting firms audit the work of the contracted firm with large financial insenstives for the auditor to find and blow the whistle on abuse.

Recent report says that the original levees were not built to "spec" and that contributed to the failures.

How will this be prevented with the new project?

[jus_the_facts]

3. "promises,....promises.....we knew they'd never keeeeeep!"

....for the second time today...I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT! :mad:

[iconoclastNYC]

4. Well they have to protect Disneyland NOLA

Too bad this wasn't done a year ago, huh?

You could say that Republicans are penny wise and pound foolish but lately they can't even claim to be the first part.

[hippiechick]

6. Of course they'll want to protect it ...

... it's going to be the GOP's version of a gated, wealthy, white playground.

[cyberpj]

21. Now that they're going to corporatize it into a casino vacationland for

profit, they need the best protection they can buy (make taxpayers pay for).

You voiced my thoughts exactly.

And the sick part is, he'll get another bump in the polls for this.

[ET Awful]

7. Hell, if they'd done that 3 years ago, they would have needed

a mere fraction of the cost of rebuilding, since the flooding wouldn't have occurred. There also would be a LOT of people still alive today.

[rkc3]

9. And how many times did the ACOE ask for money to reinforce

the levees? And how many times were they turned down?

These guys are really despicable.

[Botany]

8. Dept. of closing the barn door after the horse got out

[Beetwasher]

10. NYC Is Still Waiting For 9/11 Relief Funding, Don't Get Your Hopes Up N.O.

Promises promises. The checks in the mail, yadda yadda...

[bahrbearian]

11. How much of that goes to Trent's Porch?

[Al-CIAda]

12. 500 billion for a war of lies to enrich corporations...

3.1 for an American city in utter ruin over Federal neglect and criminal negligence.

This is not good enough. The locals will be pissed. It is already bubbling up on all the local talk shows. People see the 'blame game'being played and the Republicans are trying to put it all on the locals. They are seeing through this bullshit.

[Bridget Burke]

13. Will the wetlands be restored?

They are the first line of defense against storms. And work done upstream--such as levee building--led to their destruction. Levee improvement needs to be coordinated with work on the wetlands. Another bonus: Shrimp, crabs & oysters love the wetlands.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/05/MNG69EIHUK1.DTL

Hey--but all the tax cuts are in place. I'm sure they will only go to the truly deserving....

[Bridget Burke]

14. Duplicate!

A reminder of why we fight!

[ThingsGottaChange]

15. I'm sure Fuckwad will be watching the polls now

"This oughta get me back up there, heh..heh..heh!"

[truthisfreedom]

16. the holy trifecta?

[bahrbearian]

18. I like how the Freeps say NOLA isn't worth rebuilding because

of the rising sea level, but say global warming is fuzzy science. So Bush had to rebuild the levies or concede too global warming.

[Nimrod2005]

19. What happened to the $32 billion figure? to really do this right?

[Al-CIAda]

23. See Iraq. 500 Billion for them, 3.1 billion for us.

[DeltaLady]

20. WOOHOO I can go home!!!!!

Home; a simple word but fraught with meaning. Back to the city I love, back to the people I love, back to the life I love! This is the first glimmer of hope after too many dark days and nights to count.

Sure, I could remain skeptical, but the promise of being able to rebuild is shining in my tired eyes. I am infused with purpose and dedication to seeing this is done.

[Al-CIAda]

26. Welcome to DU Deltalady.

Not to rain on your celebration, but it is far better to 'remain skeptical' with the criminal junta in the WH.

[daleo]

22. Levees will be "Stronger and better"

It sounds like a clever bit of parsing - clearly they weren't all that strong or good, since they failed in September. Pretty well anything they do would have to be an improvement on a disaster (well, maybe not under Bush).

[Al-CIAda]

25. Exactly... how many times have we seen this pattern. Its all bullshit

to placate the moment.

[KamaAina]

27. Well, if King Dumbass** needs a way to prop up his poll numbers,

better this than yet another bogus terralert! At least with this, assuming he actually comes through on this and didn't have his fingers crossed behind his back again, we'll have a starting point from which to start rebuilding.

[Child_Of_Isis]

28. Just because they announce it,

doesn't mean they are going to give up the money.

[JPZenger]

31. If the don't do anything about the vanishing coastline ...

If they fix the levees but don't do anything about the vanishing coastline around New Orleans, the levees won't do much good. The coastal wetlands used to provide a buffer against storms. There is a detailed plan to revert the drainage to a more natural pattern, close some less used canals, and rebuild wetlands. The Feds have provided only token dollars to start to carry that plan out. At the current rate of loss, pretty soon Baton Rouge will have beachfront property.

[WestMichRad]

32. And just in time to protect NOLA!

Oops, my bad.
:hide:

Worst.pResident.Ever.
Worst.Congress.Ever.

[Hypatia82]

33. Imagine how the Army Corps of Engineers feel...

Every year they get their budgets cut, projects rolled back etc no matter who is in office. First mentions of a new levees system for New Orleans go back to 65. You could give the Army Corps $25 billion a year every year, and you'd be waiting a long time before everything was done.