Posted on 09/06/2005 11:51:02 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
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 parishes and lies between the Mississippi River and Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne. Construction began in 1967 and is years from completion.
Economists of the Corps' New Orleans district base their estimates of flood damages prevented on property loss that would have occurred without Corps projects.
The cumulative total is estimated at $9.69 billion for flood damages prevented by the Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity project, which was authorized after Hurricane Betsy ravaged the area in September 1965. The cumulative damages prevented, however, represent only 1983-98 inclusive, the period for which data is available.
"During Hurricane Georges, our project not only worked, it demonstrated its worthiness as a public investment in dollars," said Col. William L. Conner, commander of the New Orleans District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"The $749 million of damages prevented by the Lake Pontchartrain project in 1998 alone exceed the expected total cost of $732 million upon completion in 2013," Conner said. "Most of the project is built, but clearly we have more work to do."
The work completed ranges from 90 percent in Orleans Parish to 20 percent in the project's newest area, St. Charles Parish. The project also protects St. Bernard and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project has 80 miles of levees and 17.9 miles of floodwalls. The average levee is 16 feet above sea level. It is designed to protect the New Orleans area from hurricanes with the destructive force of Betsy, a fast-moving Category 3 storm.
The Corps is contributing $520 million. The remaining $212 million is being paid by the four levee districts that are the local sponsors: The Orleans Levee District, the Lake Borgne Basin & Levee District, the East Jefferson Levee District, and the Pontchartrain Levee District.
The Corps at present does not develop estimates of flood damages prevented by other hurricane-protection projects in the New Orleans District. The largest is the West Bank - Vicinity of New Orleans Hurricane Protection Project, whose origin dates from the Water Resources Development Act of 1986.
The West Bank project is estimated to cost $294 million, with completion in 2018. The project is located on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Jefferson, Orleans and Plaquemines parishes. The Corps is contributing $192 million and the local sponsor, the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, $102 million.
And they were never built to withstand over a CAT 3.
btt
Hmmmm....
< / lunacy >
How amazing, and how fraught with opportunity for graft and corruption, is it that there is a separate board for each levee? I would guess that, without that, the actual cost of constructing these things could be cut by half or more.
I'd like to know what eventually happened to this proposal back in 1998.
http://www.epa.gov/fedrgstr/EPA-IMPACT/1998/June/Day-23/i16642.htm
I've hit a dead end in my search for the outcome.
There has been some discussion here on FR that the Clinton admin denied funding for this project, which would have shored up the levees against a CAT 4 or 5 hurricane.
Only discussion, no proof.
Well, they don't need no steenking facts, now do they.
ping
The levees weren't due to be completed until 2013? Well'll never see that in the MSM.
Funds diverted for the war left the Corps of Engineers only 20% of the funding to protect New Orleans from flooding from Lake Pontchartrain.
" On June 18, 2004, the Corps’ project manager, Al Naomi, told the Times-Picayune: "the levees are sinking. ….If we don’t get the money to raise them, we can’t stay ahead of the settlement.""
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001051313
Inspite of warnings about the coming hurricane season, the administration made budget cuts in flood control and hurricane funding for New Orleans.
We have bridges built to no where in the pork transportation bill just enacted and now BILLIONS more needed because of governmental incompetency .
Just pay up and be glad it was not your town THIS TIME
Show me.
I want the bill number, I want who proposed the amendment to change the $100MIL to $42MIL, and I want who voted for the amendment.
But this point is a non sequitur, there's no there there. That cut was for the 2006 budget.
Are you saying that if the ACOE had gotten all of the $100MIL 100% of the levee construction would have been completed by the time Katrina hit? And even if it was 100% complete the levees were not desiged to handle a storm over a CAT3.
If you really want to lay blame, blame the Congress from 1968 that decided the levees should only be built to handle a CAT3.
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