CityBusiness - State experts rip Corps levee plan as 'doomed to fail'
Gibbons Burke
State experts rip Corps levee plan as 'doomed to fail'
By CityBusiness staff report
2006-07-11 12:41 PM CST
HWASHINGTON — Flood experts today criticized the
six-month, preliminary hurricane protection plan
for Louisiana released Monday by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers, which would cost tens of
billions of dollars.
They criticized the Corps plan as too expensive,
counterproductive and environmentally harmful.
“The core of the plan is a giant levee across the
entire state, just like the wall France built
after World War I to stop German troops in World
War II. It is likely to be just about as expensive
and ineffective,” said Jim Tripp, Environmental
Defense counsel and a member of the Louisiana
Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection,
Restoration and Conservation. “This plan will
divert attention and resources from a
comprehensive, accelerated wetland restoration
program.”
The Corps is under the "illusion that a single
wall is the answer to the Gulf Coast’s chronic
flooding problems and diverts attention and
critical resources to much more productive and
cost effective solutions," said Dr. Paul Kemp, a
geologist and oceanographer at Louisiana State
University. “The great Louisiana wall contemplated
by this report is neither technically nor
economically feasible.”
“The plan should focus funds on stronger levees
for urban areas and on restoring the area’s
rapidly disappearing wetlands.” said Environmental
Defense flood control expert Tim Searchinger.
“This plan not only fails to prioritize spending
at the greatest needs, but it would also encourage
new development in areas bound to flood
eventually, creating more tragedies like New
Orleans East.”
Eastern New Orleans was a densely populated
suburban area developed out of wetlands
deliberately in the 1970s because of new Corps
levees Hurricane Katrina largely destroyed.
“Last fall, Congress directed the Corps to develop
a full range of hurricane protection measures,
including coastal restoration,” said Susan
Kaderka, Gulf Coast regional director for the
National Wildlife Federation and a member of the
state Advisory Commission on Coastal Protection,
Restoration and Conservation. “This plan has a
range from A to B when the range needs to be A to
Z.” •