Corps making strides plugging levees

ContraCostaTimes ^ | 9/3/05 | Chris Adams and Carol Rosenberg

[twntaipan]

Better info about the progress of repairing the levees than Mayor Nagin gives.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The Corps predicts it will take days before workers can turn on the pumping system that moves overflow water through the city's canals back and forth to Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

I would think they would preferably send it to the Mississippi. Pontchartrain is going to become a sewage hole, otherwise.

[backhoe]

I would think they would preferably send it to the Mississippi. Pontchartrain is going to become a sewage hole, otherwise.

I think you're right-- between the human waste, debris, industrial/chemical contaminants, and corpses, it's got to be a witch's brew of toxic, foul material.

One thing keeps nagging me-- don't levees have to have one side dry to maintain structural integrity? It seems to me that if the levee is soaked on both sides, it's just a pile of mud, and that when you pump one side dry, it would breech from the pressure.

[SeeRushToldU_So]

I would think they would preferably send it to the Mississippi. Pontchartrain is going to become a sewage hole, otherwise.

You rekon the injunears that have been working with system have a better grasp on the problem than you? Don't try to be the smartest one in the room.

[DB]

The Mississippi is significantly higher in elevation (I believe). They can pump it out quicker into the lake.

[DB]

I would think that would be true for an earthen levee. Especially if it's been wet on both sides for awhile. We'll see.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, hokay. Who does lake detoxification. I wanna buy a ton of their stock.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Yeah, they might want to build a second levee of waterproof material before draining NOLA down too much.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

A Blackhawk military helicopter prepares to drop two 3,000 pound bags of sand into the breach in the flood wall of the17th Street Canal in Metarie, La., on Thursday, Sept. 1, 2005. The Corp of Engineers is trying to repair the break caused by Hurricane Katrina. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

[SeeRushToldU_So]

Well, hokay. Who does lake detoxification. I wanna buy a ton of their stock.

Dilution is the solution. I imagine the EPA is gonna wave a lot of regs. They already have with gas. Or maybe someone can set the lake afire.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Pat Boone: Smoke On The Water (Fire in the Sky)

[cloud8]

This is good news.

Thanks. I was starved for some.

[Edit35]

Who does lake detoxification?

God does.

With help from His helpers, toxic eating bacteria and antiseptic sunlight.

[HiTech RedNeck]

There's gonna be a ton of heavy metal in there too. Heavy metal that nature usually locks away in virtually insoluble compounds.

[brityank]

On one end of the canal, adjacent to the lake, workers are using a pile driver to erect a wall more than 100 feet long to stem the flow of water.

I can't believe that there are no 'close-out' doors on the exits of the canals into the lake, or to the Mississippi. That is why NOLA flooded as badly as it did. What moron designed that?

[SeeRushToldU_So]

That was a low blow. :^)

[Wonder Warthog]

"I would think they would preferably send it to the Mississippi. Pontchartrain is going to become a sewage hole, otherwise."

They can only send it where the pumps are "plumbed up" to deliver, and that is Ponchartrain.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Canal? Back up? You gotta be kiddin', mon.

[Pylon]

If Cleveland can burn a river, NOLA can burn a lake!

[HiTech RedNeck]

Since pumping will take place from beneath the surface, nothing flammable will get into Pontchartrain.