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New Orleans: A Green Genocide
Front Page Magazine ^
| September 8, 2005
| Michael Tremoglie
Posted on 09/08/2005 6:41:43 AM PDT by Toaster tank
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.
TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: barrierproject; corpsofengineers; greens; katrina; levee; tremoglie
Save Our Wetlands brags about it here:
http://saveourwetlands.org/history.html
This environutcase organization needs a new motto. I suggest:
Welands Forever, Those Pesky Humans (who needs'em?) Never.
To: Toaster tank
Or as the enviro-loonies would say:
"Give me wetlands, or give me toxic disaster."
2
posted on
09/08/2005 6:45:23 AM PDT
by
Enterprise
(When Rats govern they screw up and people die. Then, the Rats want to punch the President.)
To: Toaster tank
Save Our Wetlands brags about it here: http://saveourwetlands.org/history.html This environutcase organization needs a new motto. I suggest: Welands Forever, Those Pesky Humans (who needs'em?) Never.I have saved this page. They will change it if they start getting heat. FREEPMAIL me if you ever need it.
To: ModelBreaker
To post a message to all the list members, send email to SaveOurWetlandsNews@saveourwetlands.org
You can subscribe to the list, or change your existing subscription, in the sections below.
FACT: SOWL SAVED LAKE PONCHARTRAIN - In 1977, SOWL obtained an injunction from U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz enjoining the Corps of Engineers from building a billion dollar dam at the Chef Mentaur Rigolets Fort Pike Area, where the Gulf of Mexico enters into Lake Ponchartrain. Had SOWL not obtained this injunction, Lake Ponchartrain would be a stagnant body of water and over 28,000 acres of wetlands in New Orleans East would have been developed into the Orlanda Subdivision.
a few emails in order????
To: Toaster tank
Certainly seems like only the whacko-leftist fringes get results and support from the various governments these days ---
5
posted on
09/08/2005 6:54:38 AM PDT
by
EagleUSA
To: Toaster tank
To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Had SOWL not obtained this injunction, Lake Ponchartrain would be a stagnant body of water It already WAS a stagnant body of water, barely fishable. And now it is nothing but stagnant!
7
posted on
09/08/2005 7:01:16 AM PDT
by
Bommer
To: Toaster tank
So this disaster in New Orleans comes back to being far too solicitous of the noble Greenies, does it?
You know, of course, their ultimate plan is to reduce the human population of this planet to approximately 10% or less of its present level, for "sustainable" interspecies biodiversity.
Swamping some 60%-80% of the geographic area of New Orleans fits right in with this overall scheme. But they did not count on the diaspora of the survivors.
The Greenies have been strangely silent on most aspects of the aftermath of Katrina and New Orleans.
Bug, meet windshield.
8
posted on
09/08/2005 7:08:42 AM PDT
by
alloysteel
("Master of the painfully obvious.....")
To: Bommer
It already WAS a stagnant body of water, barely fishable. And now it is nothing but stagnant! No - now it is a TOXIC Stagnant Body of Water.
9
posted on
09/08/2005 7:35:28 AM PDT
by
LM_Guy
To: Toaster tank
10
posted on
09/08/2005 7:37:32 AM PDT
by
Skooz
("Political Correctness is the handmaiden of terrorism" - Michelle Malkin)
To: Toaster tank
I sent them a shame on you email.
This is their response.
The Corps of Engineers 1977 New Orleans District Hurricane Barrier Project, was a scheme to develop-drain wetlands under the guise of Hurricane protection. This HBP would have destroyed 28,000 acres of wetlands in N.O. east for the Orlandia subdivision.
Therefore, promoting development in hurricane flood plains under the ruse of hurricane protection, profiting wealthy Texas oil barons, who owned this tract of New Orleans east wetlands at the time.
Plus this HBP would have destroyed the Lakes Maurepas Pontchtrain Catherine Borgne(MPCB)eco system. These wetlands are presently the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge Center, which is the largest urban park in the world. This area was severely flooded by Hurricane Katrina.
Imagine the destruction and loss of human lives that Hurricane Katrina would have caused if Save Our Wetlands Inc.(SOWL) had not enjoined this pork barrel scheme.
Also most important once the hurricane surges had topped the barriers, there would have been no way for the waters to recede.
At the time, the St. Tammany Parish Police Jury joined with SOWL as plaintiffs in this lawsuit. The plaintiffs proved that the Corps lied by misrepresenting their own internal engineering report.
Unfortunately now, Hurricane Katrina is forcing us as a nation and people to see and confront the lies and actions of an ugly evil empire http://www.911truth.org/
Views
Today: Thu September, 8 2005
Why the Levee Broke
Feds saw it coming
Funding for Louisiana flood control was diverted to pay for the war in Iraq.
By Will Bunch
Published: September 2, 2005
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AlterNet.org
Even though Hurricane Katrina has moved well north of the city, the waters continued to rise in New Orleans on Wednesday. That's because Lake Pontchartrain continues to pour through a two-block-long break in the main levee, near the city's 17th Street Canal.
With much of the Crescent City some 10 feet below sea level, the rising tide may not stop until it's level with the massive lake.
There have been numerous reports of bodies floating in the poorest neighborhoods of this poverty-plagued city, but the truth is that the death toll may not be known for days, because the conditions continue to frustrate rescue efforts.
New Orleans had long known it was highly vulnerable to flooding and a direct hit from a hurricane. In fact, the federal government has been working with state and local officials in the region since the late 1960s on major hurricane and flood relief efforts. When flooding from a massive rainstorm in May 1995 killed six people, Congress authorized the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project, or SELA.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the New Orleans newspaper The Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.
Newhouse News Service, in an article posted late Tuesday night at the web site of The Times-Picayune Web site, reported: "No one can say they didn't see it coming. ... Now in the wake of one of the worst storms ever, serious questions are being asked about the lack of preparation."
'It appears the money has been moved'
In early 2004, as the cost of the conflict in Iraq soared, President Bush proposed spending less than 20 percent of what the Corps said was needed for Lake Pontchartrain, according to this Feb. 16, 2004, article, in New Orleans CityBusiness: The $750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20 percent incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St. Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes.
The Lake Pontchartrain project is slated to receive
$3.9 million in the president's 2005 budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed.
"The longer we wait without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I've got at least six levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee protection back to where it should be (because of settling). Right now I owe my contractors about $5 million. And we're going to have to pay them interest." On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."
'Everything is sinking'
That June, with the 2004 hurricane season starting, the Corps' Naomi went before a local agency, the East Jefferson Levee Authority, and essentially begged for
$2 million for urgent work that Washington was now unable to pay for. From the June 18, 2004
Times-Picayune: "The system is in great shape, but the levees are sinking. Everything is sinking, and if we don't get the money fast enough to raise them, then we can't stay ahead of the settlement," he said. "The problem that we have isn't that the levee is low, but that the federal funds have dried up so that we can't raise them."
The panel authorized that money, and on July 1, 2004, it had to pony up another $250,000 when it learned that stretches of the levee in Metairie had sunk by four feet. The agency had to pay for the work with higher property taxes. The levee board noted in October 2004 that the feds were also now not paying for a hoped-for $15 million project to better shore up the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.
The 2004 hurricane season was the worst in decades. In spite of that, the federal government came back this spring with the steepest reduction in hurricane and flood-control funding for New Orleans in history.
Because of the proposed cuts, the Corps office there imposed a hiring freeze. Officials said that money targeted for the SELA project -- $10.4 million, down from $36.5 million -- was not enough to start any new jobs. According to New Orleans CityBusiness this June
5: The district has identified $35 million in projects to build and improve levees, floodwalls and pumping stations in St. Bernard, Orleans, Jefferson and St.
Charles parishes. Those projects are included in a Corps line item called Lake Pontchartrain, where funding is scheduled to be cut from $5.7 million this year to $2.9 million in 2006. Naomi said it's enough to pay salaries but little else.
"We'll do some design work. We'll design the contracts and get them ready to go if we get the money. But we don't have the money to put the work in the field, and that's the problem," Naomi said.
Now it's too late
There was, at the same time, a growing recognition that more research was needed to see what New Orleans must do to protect itself from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. But once again, the money was not there. As the Times-Picayune reported last Sept. 22:
"That second study would take about four years to complete and would cost about $4 million, said Army Corps of Engineers project manager Al Naomi. About $300,000 in federal money was proposed for the 2005 fiscal-year budget, and the state had agreed to match that amount.
"But the cost of the Iraq war forced the Bush administration to order the New Orleans district office not to begin any new studies, and the 2005 budget no longer includes the needed money, he said."
The Senate was seeking to restore some of the SELA funding cuts for 2006. But now it's too late. One project that a contractor had been racing to finish this summer was a bridge and levee job right at the 17th Street Canal, site of the main breach on Monday.
The levee failure appears to be causing a human tragedy of epic proportions: "We probably have 80 percent of our city under water; with some sections of our city the water is as deep as 20 feet. Both airports are underwater," Mayor Ray Nagin told a radio interviewer.
The Newhouse News Service article published Tuesday night observed, "The Louisiana congressional delegation urged Congress earlier this year to dedicate a stream of federal money to Louisiana's coast, only to be opposed by the White House. ... In its budget, the Bush administration proposed a significant reduction in funding for southeast Louisiana's chief hurricane protection project. Bush proposed $10.4 million, a sixth of what local officials say they need."
Washington knew that this day could come at any time, and it knew the things that needed to be done to protect the citizens of New Orleans. But in the tradition of the riverboat gambler, the Bush administration decided to roll the dice on its fool's errand in Iraq, and on a tax cut that mainly benefited the rich. Now Bush has lost that gamble, big time.
The president told us that we needed to fight in Iraq to save lives here at home. Yet -- after moving billions of domestic dollars to the Persian Gulf -- there are bodies floating through the streets of Louisiana. What does George W. Bush have to say for himself now?
Will Bunch is a senior writer at the Philadelphia Daily News and author of the blog Attytood. This story was distributed by Alternet.org.
For an annotated map detailing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, go here.
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To: Toaster tank
Fellow Freepers:
At the suggestion of writer Michelle Malkin last Friday, I have cobbled together a blogsite called Texas Clearinghouse for Katrina Aid to serve as a clearinghouse for refugee efforts in Texas.
Texas is getting more refugees than any other state -- that's fine, we'll take them all -- but we need help providing them with food, clothing, medicine, and shelter. We need help taking care of their pets, too.
If you are a refugee, you can information that will help you find relief. If you want to donate or volunteer, you can find someone who needs you. Believe me, there are a lot of organizations who need your help.
Right now the site mostly covers Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas but I'm adding more every night. My wife was down at Reunion Arena in Dallas Tuesday handing out care packages and spiritually ministering to the refugees as a representative of her employer. She says that the situation is tragic and that there's a lot of work to be done. There are so many children who don't know where their parents are or even if their parents are still alive.
There are a lot of churches and other organizations in Texas that need help in dealing with the problem and I would appreciate it if you would get the word out.
Many thanks,
Michael McCullough
Stingray blogsite
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