What to do about New Orleans?

First, a few depressing facts:
40% of all coastal wetlands in the United States are located in this state. Since 1940, the Mississippi River Delta lost more than 1,000 square miles of land. Coastal Louisiana is poised to lose more than 10,000 acres per year for the foreseeable future. Because this ecosystem still supports one of the most productive fisheries in the US, the loss of this delta will be catastrophic. Louisiana faces accellerating wetland loss resulting in irreversible deterioration of the Mississippi River Delta. This will lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem.

It gets worse. New Orleans is sinking eight times faster than the worldwide rate of less than 1/2 a foot, ie 4 feet per century. That sinking has been accellerating over the last two decades. The natural replenishment of the soils, deposits and waters from the Mississippi was and is being destroyed by the Army Corps of Engineers.. Currently, New Orleans is eight feet below sea level, and in some places, 11 feet.

Hundreds of miles away, dikes, levees and boat locks further damage the delta, destroying the natural cycles of flooding, replenishment, drying and, yet again, healthy flooding. In essence, we, in our infinite capacity to underestimate mother Nature, are killing it off.

As Katrina showed, our efforts to defy our earth's natural cycles are quite similar to pissing directly into a windstorm, in the hopes that a major rainstorm might happen by to wash off the stain. Even our feeble efforts to "fix" the dikes and canals actually made things worse. By dredging the canals, an effort to prevent leaks and periodic water seepage, we undermined the clay base and the support structure for the dikes. Interestingly Katrina lost a great deal of energy when it hit NO. It was nowhere near a Cat 5 hurricane, more like a Cat 3. Even those winds and tidal waters were enough to destroy the entire city. And next year will be worse. the severity and numbers of next season's hurricanes are predicted to be as bad or worse.

Clearly, rebuilding on a sinking flood plain, with the resulting accelleration of destruction of wetlands, fisheries, etc, is foolhardy at best, and just plain stupid and self-destructive.

So, what to do? How about a survey of other areas, for a start?

The Amazon, and more importantly, the Mekong Delta. The wetlands of the Mekong are constantly renewed with rich alluvial deposits from the hudreds of thousands of cubic kilometers of water each year. This resulting silt supports one of the world's great fisheries. More than 90,000,000 are fed solely by this river, its periodic floods and its constant renewal. Had the inhabitants of the 7th longes river attacked with with dikes, levees and asphalt, that area would be as dead as the NO Mississippi delta is becoming.

The key, then, is not to try to control, alter, dam, block or fight the wetlands or the river. The key is to allow it to act how it intends to act in the first place, and to take it into account when we rebuild residences, adapt and adopt practices that rely on the river and nature, rather than to ignore it or worse.

A successful NO will be a much different place. it will be smaller, and populated by more stilt buildings than shotgun residences. Perhaps, the French quarter can be saved in its present place, but only if vast stretches of the rest of the city are set loose. Remove most of the dykes, and allow the area to drink in the flood waters. Allow the damaging canals to fill in and clog up. Build residences knowing that serious flooding will take place and that serious storms will level entire areas.

This is not defeatism; this is planning to allow the area come back to productive, beautiful and bountiful life. Merely building higher walls only causes a greater collapse the next time Mother Nature flexes her muscles. Stilts, allowing the floods to take back what we foolishly tried to avoid, and creating an economy based on the natural resources will be best for all.

Thank you.

The science is pretty strong.
I would love to learn more.

better levees. Stopping the war to divert funds for just ONE WEEK would be enough to rebuild the entire levee system AND erase all student loans/college debt in this country. We should hire European contractors since American contractors seem to be incapabable and utterly worthless... unlerss one intends on destroying rather than rebuilding. Ex. Halliburton.

Fisheries and restoration of the ecology is not as financially rewarding as oil tankers, etc.

Did you watch NOW last night? I only caught the tail end of it when he interviewed Diane Wilson? She was following the rules and trying to stop one of the major companies from releasing pollutants into the water.

See this link for some more information. http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1240

Transcript of the NOW interview should be available later in the week here. http://www.pbs.org/now/archive_transcripts.html

Anyway, upshot was that one day she called her attorney, her attorney thought he was talking to an attorney from the opposition with the name Diane and she found out the company was still dumping chemicals with the blessing of her attorney and politicians from every level of government; local, state, and federal.

that will bear the brunt of your plan. Poor black neighborhoods were in the lower grounds. A smaller NO means that someone has to move out. And that someone will be poor blacks.

Nothing wrong with building on stilts 'cept whose going to pay for that? Not poor black homeowners. Not poor black renters.

or having them leave, until they can be employed by the restoration project, making themselves better off while returning the land to its most important.

Frankly, I think it is a horrible mistake, warehousing them in a sinking floodplain, with a guarantee of future problems, the least of which is the increasing pace of the sinking.

they are hiring out of towners. No one is really going out to Houston or the other places and bringing those folks back in to work.

If there was such a thing as fair compensation, I might buy your argument. But these folks will get pennies on the dollar for their land.

for foreclosures.

Yes, I am aware of just how the Bushistas are dealing with rebuilding. Anyone see a workable, logical, and well-thought out plan? Oh wait, this is the BUSH ADMIN we are talking about. Silly me.

Yes, we should be hiring locals. Yes, we need to apply all the studies from Tulane. Yes, we need to approach the problem from a view of what NATURE will do in the future. I may be blind, but i do not see that happening now. Simply rebuilding what was there is wrong.