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Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show. The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday joined Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and other federal lawmakers in urging Congress to help California repair its aging system of levees. Schwarzenegger, who is expected to announce today his bid for a full term as governor, wants an additional $90 million for levee repairs from a federal government that has a history of failing to show California the money. The hope is to prevent a New Orleans-like disaster in the streets of Stockton and Sacramento. "Many parts of our Central Valley have significantly lower levels of flood protection than similar areas in the...

Two hosts at the liberal radio network Air America are defending Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan - saying he's not wrong to suspect that white people deliberately blew up the levees in New Orleans. "You cannot blame people for coming up with conspiracy theories," Air America host Chuck D. said, after he was asked Thursday about the paranoid pronouncement by MSNBC's Tucker Carlson. "They look on television and see that the government is four days late in saving people [who are] supposed to be their citizens," Chuck D. explained. Carlson gave him a second chance to denounce Farrakhan's...

Several media sources have reported that LA Governor Kathleen Blanco resisted and delayed federal efforts to send aid and relief to southern Louisiana, expressing concern that if the federal government became involved, they would lay all the blame on state and local officials. This is a matter of public record. What has yet to come to light are any details which might explain Governor Blanco's apparant insecurity. This article from The New Orleans Times-Picayune, dated June 23, 2002, notes the following significant points: 1. The New Orleans area's last line of defense against hurricane flooding is a 475-mile-long system of...

Minister Louis Farrakhan was in Charlotte Monday to rally support for his Millions More March. However, he did have some choice words about the response to Hurricane Katrina victims some of whom are staying at the Charlotte Coliseum. Farrakhan's been traveling across the country to visit shelters like the one that is set up at the coliseum. He said he's not happy with the job the American Red Cross is doing. He had harsh words for FEMA too. But that was just the warm up. Farrakhan also shared his thoughts on how the levee breached in the first place. "I...

Minister Louis Farrakhan was in Charlotte Monday to rally support for his Millions More March. However, he did have some choice words about the response to Hurricane Katrina victims some of whom are staying at the Charlotte Coliseum. Farrakhan's been traveling across the country to visit shelters like the one that is set up at the coliseum. He said he's not happy with the job the American Red Cross is doing. He had harsh words for FEMA too. But that was just the warm up. Farrakhan also shared his thoughts on how the levee breached in the first place. "I...

What's the opposite of heroism? Maybe it's the spectacle of the Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana trying to shift blame for the destruction of a 287-year-old city away from themselves onto the President of the United States, and finally onto each other. Instead, I think they should consider blaming Kofi Annan. After all, the UN was in charge of the world when the levee on Lake Ponchartrain broke and submerged New Orleans. That would be the same levee Louisiana politicians have resisted shoring up for the past decade. They took half the money Congress gave them...

The conspiracy kooks are coming out of the woodwork in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. According to information "obtained" by radio show host Hal Turner, divers have uncovered evidence that explosives were used to break the 17th Street Canal levee in New Orleans. Also, according to an article by kook extraordinaire Ernesto Cienfuegos, this was accomplished by federal agents or military personnel who ended up in a firefight with New Orleans police.

Did yo hear the interview with the engineer whp has been working on the Levees for a long time, discussing why the Levees busted, what it would cost to fix them and how.. And hear him say, that no amount of repair or "u[grading of the present New Orlkeans Levee system, will ever be able to protect the city from a force 5 or 4 class Hurricane? Basically said that the whole levee system would have to be redesigned and built anew to be able to properly protect the city from a future reoccurance, and his optimistic estimate with all...

Former Louisiana Governor Earl K. Long (1948-52, 1956-60) was once quoted as saying: “Someday Louisiana is going to get good government, and they ain’t gunna like it.” Reversing this syllogism, today California apparently has dysfunctional government and it is apparently content with it. The highly politicized and inept state and local response to the devastating, but predictable, Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf Coast has brought the attention of the public on the performance of government, mostly particularly state and local government. It is not the federal government but the regional and local governments that are the apparent weak link in...

New Orleans, LA -- Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest: Burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall! One diver, a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them. He secreted a small chunk of the cement inside his diving suit and later arranged for it to be sent to trusted military friends at a The U.S. Army Forensic Laboratory at Fort Gillem, Georgia for testing. According to well placed sources, a military forensic specialist determined the burn...

But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations....

Not Heard in the Mainstream Media Re: Chain of Responsibility "Oh, and by the way, the levees that broke were the responsibility of the local landowners and the local levee board to maintain, NOT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT." Excerpt from a letter posted at ChronWatch.com by Obra T. Bourgoyne, Jonesville, Lousiana For full text go to: http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=16666

With all that has happened in the state, it’s understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.” These words may seem especially inappropriate after the breaking of the levee that caused the tragic events in New Orleans last week. But “wet and wild” has a larger significance...

STATEMENT BY SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN ON S. 2138, THE FY 1998 ENERGY/WATER APPROPRIATIONS BILL For Immediate Release Tuesday, May 19, 1998 Mr. President, I voted in favor of this bill, the FY 1999 Energy/Water Appropriations bill. There is much to support in the bill. ... Mr. President, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both Houses to work harder to curb our habit of funneling resources to provincial ventures. Serving the public good must continue to be our mandate, and we can only live up to that charge by keeping the process free of unfair...

In the 1950’s, engineers observed that the Mississippi would soon cease to inhabit its current channel as the mainstream, and instead migrate to the Atchafalaya River Basin. The path by which the Mississippi would migrate was a small stretch of water, named the “Old River”, that connected the Mississippi to the Red River. Old River was formed when Captain Henry Shreve dug a shortcut across the the neck of Turnbull’s Bend in 1831. The Mississippi abandoned its old course and took the shortcut provided by Old River. As a result, the Atchafalaya River received more and more discharge from the...

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project planned to build fortifications at two strategic locations, which would keep massive storms on the Gulf of Mexico from causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city of New Orleans. These plans were abandoned after a radical enviromental group called Save Our Wetlands successfully sued to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's eco-system.

As radical environmentalists continue to blame the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on President Bush’s ecological policies, a mainstream Louisiana media outlet inadvertently disclosed a shocking fact: Environmentalist activists were responsible for spiking a plan that may have saved New Orleans. Decades ago, the Green Left – pursuing its agenda of valuing wetlands and topographical “diversity” over human life – sued to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from building floodgates that would have prevented significant flooding that resulted from Hurricane Katrina. In the 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project planned to...

Before Hurricane Katrina breached a levee on the New Orleans Industrial Canal, the Army Corps of Engineers had already launched a $748 million construction project at that very location. But the project had nothing to do with flood control. The Corps was building a huge new lock for the canal, an effort to accommodate steadily increasing barge traffic. Except that barge traffic on the canal has been steadily decreasing. In Katrina's wake, Louisiana politicians and other critics have complained about paltry funding for the Army Corps in general and Louisiana projects in particular. But over the five years of President...

November 29, 2004 (FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE) THREE STATE OFFICIALS INDICTED FOR OBSTRUCTING FEDERAL AUDIT Shreveport, Louisiana . . . A federal grand jury has returned two separate indictments charging three members of the State Military Department with offenses related to the obstruction of an audit of the use of federal funds for flood mitigation activities throughout Louisiana, United States Attorney Donald W. Washington announced today. Two of the individuals charged, MICHAEL C. APPE, 51, of Mandeville, Louisiana, and MICHAEL L. BROWN, 61, of St. Francisville, Louisiana, are senior employees of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness. Both...

The news and opinion spin cycle is moving faster than the winds of a category 4 hurricane. Barely have we had the opportunity to feel denial about the terrible tragedy, feel sympathy for victims and begin lending our support than we've leapt to the stage of recrimination: Who's to blame? And the rush to judgment is running ahead of appropriate investigation and facts. Will Bunch, a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News, raised the question "Did the New Orleans Catastrophe Have to Happen?" He quoted Louisiana officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the New Orleans area...

Levee Board 'Spy' Saga In a Gambit Weekly exclusive, Orleans Levee District President Jim Huey speaks out for the first time about Namergate. By Allen Johnson Jr Breaking a long silence over a bizarre controversy, Orleans Levee District (OLD) President Jim Huey says that, contrary to news reports, he did not authorize a cloak-and-dagger investigation of controversial right-wing radio talk show host Robert Namer, a vocal critic of the levee board. Huey also discounts new allegations by attorney Patrick Klotz, who says the board also conducted private investigations of three of his clients, all critics of OLD themselves. In an...

DID THE CITY KNOW? Someone has stepped forward with a story that there was a crack in the 17th Street Canal seawall before the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, and that the city was notified of the crack. Is it possible that New Orleans officials ignored a warning that could have saved their city from this disaster? Really, it doesn't matter, since it was all George Bush's fault.

one of the talking heads on Fox just said that...did i hear that right?

A New York Times editor, oh, by the way, asked, "Why New Orleans’ levees remained so inadequate? Where was Congress before it wandered off to vacation engaged in slashing the budget for correcting some of the gaping holes in the area’s flood protection?" The answer may be that they were reading old "Times" editorials. In 1993, the Times wrote that Washington should, "resist pressure to spend more on flood-control projects." In 1997, the Times praised moderate Republicans for protecting the environment by blocking flood-control spending. And in April of this year, the Times ripped a Senate bill that would have...

State and local officials did not inform top federal officials early on of the deaths and lack of food among hurricane victims in the Superdome or convention center, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said yesterday. Mr. Chertoff said neither he nor Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown was told of the deteriorating situation in New Orleans until Thursday night.

WASHINGTON - A loose barge may have caused a large breach in the east side of the Industrial Canal floodwall that accelerated Hurricane Katrina's rising floodwaters in the Lower Ninth Ward and St. Bernard Parish, Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi said Monday.

I got this from Power Line. It's another great blog out there and it was also on Free Republic. The Freepers are doing great work on all this. "The New York Times is leading the shameless Bush and Republican bashing with respect to the response to Hurricane Katrina. One of its themes is that Congress didn't pay enough attention to flood control in the Gulf. But Donald Luskin reminds us of this bit of wisdom from the New York Times editorial page earlier this year." If you've been paying attention -- and I don't know how long you can before...

NEW ORLEANS -- Even though Hurricane Georges was a near-miss for New Orleans, projects built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and its local sponsors prevented an estimated $749 million of damages from the September 1998 storm in the region of Lake Pontchartrain alone. The damages prevented are for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project, which is in four parishes and lies between the Mississippi River and Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne. Construction began in 1967 and is years from completion. The damages prevented are for the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project, which is in four...

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers News Release Release No. PA-09-01 For Immediate Release: September 3, 2005 Contact: Connie Gillette: 202-761-1809 Constance.S.Gillette@hq02.usace.army.mil U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Relief Support and Levee Repair Background Information The breaches that have occurred on the levees surrounding New Orleans are located on the 17th Street Canal Levee and London Avenue Canal Levee. The 17th Street Canal Levees and London Avenue Canal Levees are completed segments of the Lake Ponchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project. Although other portions of the Lake Ponchartrain project are pending, these two segments were complete, and no modifications or improvements...

The physical devastation caused by hurricane Katrina has painfully revealed the moral devastation of our times that has led to mass looting in New Orleans, assaults on people in shelters, the raping of girls, and shots being fired at helicopters that are trying to rescue people....

A week after Hurricane Katrina, engineers plugged the levee break that swamped much of the city and floodwaters began to recede... Sheets of metal and repeated helicopter drops of 3,000-pound sandbags along the 17th Street canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain succeeded Monday in plugging a 200-foot-wide gap, and water was being pumped from the canal back into the lake. State officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers say once the canal level is drawn down two feet, Pumping Station 6 can begin pumping water out of the bowl-shaped city. Some parts of the city already showed slipping floodwaters as...

Before residents had ever heard the words "Hurricane Katrina," the New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE ran a story warning residents: If you stay behind during a big storm, you'll be on your own! Editors at TIMES-PICAYUNE on Monday called for every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be fired. In an open letter to President Bush, the paper said: "Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That's to the government's shame." But the TIMES-PICAYUNE published a story on July 24, 2005 stating: City, state and federal emergency officials are preparing to give a historically blunt message:...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said on Monday it had completely closed one major gap in the levees breached by Hurricane Katrina and was close to repairing a second major breach. "Progress has been sufficient to allow the contractors to be in position to completely close the breach at 17th Street, and the breach at the London Street Canal has been completely closed," the Corps said in a statement. "The primary focus today is to assess the pumps within the city and to work to get some of those started today," said Greg Breerwood, deputy district engineer for Project...

What Hurricane Katrina exposed was the psychological consequences of the welfare state. What we consider "normal" behavior in an emergency is behavior that is normal for people who have values and take the responsibility to pursue and protect them. People with values respond to a disaster by fighting against it and doing whatever it takes to overcome the difficulties they face. They don't sit around and complain that the government hasn't taken care of them. And they don't use the chaos of a disaster as an opportunity to prey on their fellow men.

The breach in the 17th Street Canal levee that had put the city of New Orleans underwater was essentially closed early Sunday evening after days of work and the use of "ingenuity to the max," a top U.S. Corps of Engineers general said.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 2, 2005 – As National Guard vehicles forded floodwaters in downtown New Orleans today delivering critical relief supplies and helping law enforcement officials restore order, workers from the Army Corps of Engineers were focused on draining the city and repairing gaps in its levee system.

Agency felt New Orleans was safe for 200-300 years 02 Sep 2005 21:45:13 GMT Source: Reuters By Will Dunham WASHINGTON, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The Army Corps of Engineers believed the New Orleans levee system would protect the city for 200 or 300 years, but it was not designed to guard against a storm as powerful as Hurricane Katrina that thoroughly overwhelmed it, the head of the agency said on Friday. Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, also said Bush administration funding cuts for the system of levees, floodgates and pumping stations that failed...

KNIGHT RIDDER NEW ORLEANS - Every five minutes or so, an Army Blackhawk helicopter hovered 50 feet above the collapsed 17th Street Canal levee Friday and dropped a 3,000-pound bag of sand. Each one vanished into the water, showing no apparent results. But after several false starts, the Army Corps of Engineers said their levee repair efforts are slowly taking hold. If there is no more rain, the breaches in New Orleans' all-important levees could be closed by Sunday, said engineer Don Basham, chief of the engineering division, from headquarters in Washington. Pumping the water out of the city is...

Early questions were raised about proper funding for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is in charge of many hurricane-protection programs across the United States. Some early claims blamed President Bush for cutbacks in funding, but corps officials stated that a decrease in funding was not to blame. The levees themselves were only designed to protect New Orleans from a Category 3 hurricane and that this decision was made by the corps decades ago "based on a cost-benefit analysis." Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, chief of engineers of the corps was quoted as saying, "I don't see that the level of...

Leaders of the Army Corps of Engineers say the city's flood walls were in excellent shape before the storm but weren't designed to handle a hurricane of Katrina's magnitude. In a phone briefing Sept. 1, the Army's Chief of Engineers, Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, addressed some of the issues that have surfaced about Corps-built structures around New Orleans. Strock said that the project that resulted in the levees along Lake Pontchartrain was designed to protect against a 200-to-300-year storm, which equates to about a Category 3 hurricane, but Katrina was more severe. Al Naomi, senior project manager in the...

Even before Hurricane Katrina struck, experts warned that the network of earthen, steel and concrete barriers that protected New Orleans was inadequate - and they proved tragically correct. On Tuesday, a day after the storm barreled past, sections of two levees broke, spilling water into the streets and inundating an estimated 80 percent of the city, much of which lies below sea level. In all, the New Orleans district contains 350 miles of hurricane levees, mostly along Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River on the south - part of an even larger network constructed over many...

Brace yourselves, capital citizens, for yet another hurricane season! Yes, Louisiana’s annual brush with death is back with a vengeance. Merely two months old, the 2005 season promises to be a force to be reckoned with, having spawned an unprecedented number of name-worthy storms thus far. Things don’t appear to be settling down any time soon, either: As I write this article, “Emily” is assuming the position in the Gulf of Mexico! How can we be on the letter “E” this early in the game? Still, “Arlene” was a bit of a let down, “Bret” proved unremarkable, “Cindy” was a...

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, much of New Orleans is under water in the top satellite image, taken on August 30, 2005, at 11:45 a.m. CDT by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. Early news reports say that as much as 80 percent of the city is flooded after levies failed to hold Katrina’s massive storm surge back. The flooding is getting worse as water slowly seeps into the city from Lake Pontchartrain. On Saturday, August 27, 2005, New Orleans formed a tan and green grid sandwiched between the lake shore and the river in...

The attached is a video from WWL TV in New Orleans. The mayor of New Orleans gives a very detailed report of the condition of the city. As bad as the national news is painting the picture, it falls short of the devastation that has occurred. There are 8 refineries located in the New Orleans to Mobile areas. Nearly 1/2 of all the gasoline in the country is refined here. These are all shut down, and they don't know for how long. Even if they were capable of running the refineries, there will be a huge shortage of workers as...

Mayor: Major Breach Flooding and Destroying New Orleans National Author: Steve Sabludowsky | 8/30/2005 Home : Business The City of New Orleans Is Devastated. Those were the words of Mayor C. Ray Nagin and based upon a major breach of a levee system, water is flowing into New Orleans flooding it beyond recognition and could very well destroy New Orleans, Jefferson and the surrounding areas. In a most frightening interview with WWL TV, Mayor C. Ray Nagin gave the worse-case scenario of events that anyone could possibly imagine. In the beginning of the interview, he stated that New Orleans is...

Just broke on CNN about five minutes ago. Rick Sanchez was interviewing the VP of Tulane University Hospital, which is located in downtown New Orleans. She said the water is rising around the hospital at a rate of about one inch per minute. She said if it continues at that rate, she will have to call FEMA to ask them to bring in helicopters to evacuate the hospital. She said there are about 1000 patients in the hospital, and that it has a helipad on the roof. It would be the only way to get everyone out. Hospital officials have...

<p>Flood agency wants the Sutter County barrier relocated to ease erosion and a bottleneck.</p> <p>A regional flood agency wants to loosen the straitjacket that confines part of the Sacramento River: It is planning to relocate 1.5 miles of levee in the Sutter County portion of Natomas to deal with dangerous riverbank erosion.</p>