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The problem is simple and the solution is simple but not politically acceptable. The River has levees built all the way to Venice (about 80 miles south of New Orleans) and thus none of the silt that was at one time deposited during floods to the south east of New Orleans make it to the bays and esturaries of the river. This area is being continually eroded by wave and tide action and as as result the protective marshes recede a few hundred feet every year. In effect New Orleans is getting closer and closer to the Gulf of Mexico each year.

The solution is to let the river flood into the Marshes to the Southeast of the city as it did in the past. This will entail large tracts of development being destroyed (sorry about that Chalmette, Lousisiana). The compensation required for these areas is quite small as compared to the compensation that would be required to rebuild New Orleans.

The solution that nobody will accept is to let the river flood as it did in the past. You can delay the river, you can put the river in levees, that river will eventully go where it wants.

The problem of development in areas unsuitable is also a result of idiotic policy of the Federal Government. Private insures will not issue flood insurance at a resonable rate for these areas in danger. The federal government has and as a result areas that are totally unsuitable for development have houses built on them. The solution that nobody will accept is to let the river flood as it did in the past. You can delay the river, you can put the river in levees, that river will eventully go where it wants.

HEAR HEAR ...

Had the feds not locked the Mississippi in cement and levees (so New Orleans could remain a "vital" port, for instance ... =), she'd still be dumping sufficient sediment to keep the coast from eroding in earnest.

As you say. The paragraph that sticks out to my mind is this:

A consortium of local, state and federal agencies is studying a $2 billion to $3 billion plan to divert sediment from the Mississippi River back into the delta. Because the river is leveed all the way to the Gulf, where sediment is dumped into deep water, nothing is left to replenish the receding delta.

In other words, the disaster is man-made. Wetland doesn't just disappear. It moves around, it grows and shrinks, but it doesn't just disappear unless army engineers get in there and make it disappear by straightening out rivers and enclosing their banks.

So what's the solution? Break down the lower levees, as you say. It's either give up the new development or lose the whole, historic city. Or, I suppose, use Democrat Senator Breaux's considerable clout to take taxpayer funds to truck and barge topsoil from uninhabited spots in the midwest and dump it into the delta. That might stave off the disaster at the cost of a hundred billion or so, until Breaux has finished his career.

The solution that nobody will accept is to let the river flood as it did in the past. You can delay the river, you can put the river in levees, that river will eventully go where it wants.

You are correct. Evidenced by the great flood of '93 along the Missouri and Mississippi.Two things are at fault. Our attempt to make the major rivers navigable year round, and the desire to live "near the water".

As a result of these, we build levees and wait for them to break with disasters as a result. In the '93 flood the Corp of Engineers was ready to breach the levee south of St Louis to rescue St Louis (if necessary) and to keep Cairo Il and other towns from complete devastation. To do so would have flooded thousands of acres of farmland and residential property.