Janos Kaldy
2005-09-08 15:37:44 UTC
New Orleans: A Green Genocide
By Michael Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 8, 2005
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19418
As radical environmentalists continue to blame the ferocity of
Hurricane Katrinas devastation on President Bushs 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 build fortifications at
two strategic locations, which would keep massive storms on the Gulf
of Mexico from causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city. An
article in the May 28, 2005, New Orleans Times-Picayune stated, Under
the original plan, floodgate-type structures would have been built at
the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving
from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain.
The floodgates would have blocked the flow of water from the Gulf of
Mexico, through Lake Borgne, through the Rigolets [and Chef Mentuer]
into Lake Pontchartrain, declared Professor Gregory Stone, the James
P. Morgan Distinguished Professor and Director of the Coastal Studies
Institute of Louisiana State University. This would likely have
reduced storm surge coming from the Gulf and into the Lake
Pontchartrain, Professor Stone told Michael P. Tremoglie during an
interview on September 6. The professor concluded, [T]hese floodgates
would have alleviated the flooding of New Orleans caused by Hurricane
Katrina.
The New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers and Professor Stone were not
the only people cognizant of the consequences that could and did
result because of the environmental activists. While speaking with
Sean Hannity on his radio show on Labor Day, former Louisiana
Congressman and Speaker of the House Bob Livingston also referred to
environmentalists whose litigation prevented hurricane prevention
projects.
In other words, unlike other programs including the ones leftists
like Sid Blumenthal excoriated the president for not funding these
constructions might have prevented the loss of life experienced in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Why was this project aborted? As the Times-Picayune wrote, Those
plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued
to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's
eco-system. (Emphasis added.) Specifically, in 1977, a state
environmentalist group known as Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) sued to have
it stopped. SOWL stated the proposed Rigolets and Chef Menteur
floodgates of the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Prevention Project
would have a negative effect on the area surrounding Lake
Pontchartrain. Further, SOWLs recollection of this case demonstrates
they considered this move the first step in a perfidious design to
drain Lake Pontchartrain entirely and open the area to dreaded
capitalist investment.
On December 30, 1977, U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz Jr. issued
an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake
Pontchartrain hurricane protection project, demanding the engineers
draw up a second environmental impact statement, three years after the
corps submitted the first one. In one of the most ironic
pronouncements of all time, Judge Schwartz wrote, it is the opinion
of the Court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they, and
in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the
barrier project based upon the August, 1974 FEIS [federal
environmental impact statement] is allowed to continue.
If the Greens prevailed, it was not because the forces of common sense
did not make a compelling case. SOWLs account reveals that during the
course of the trial the defense counsel, Gerald Gallinghouse a
Republican U.S. Attorney who acted as a special prosecutor during the
Carter administration felt so strongly that the project should
continue that he told the judge he would go before the United States
Congress with [Democratic Louisiana Congressman] F. Edward Hebert to
pass a resolution, exempting the Hurricane Barrier Project from the
rules and regulations of the National Environmental Policy Act
because, in his opinion, [this plan] is necessary to protect the
citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane. Despite this, the judge
ruled in favor of the environmentalists. Ultimately, the project was
aborted in favor of building up existing levees.
However, the old plan lived on in the minds of those who put human
beings first. The Army Corps of Engineers as recently as last year had
publicly discussed resuming the practice. The September-October 2004
edition of Riverside (the magazine of the New Orleans District Army
Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Office) referred to this lawsuit and
project. Eric Lincolns article titled, Old Plans Revived for
Category 5 Hurricane Protection, stated:
In 1977, plans for hurricane protection structures at the Rigolets
and Chef Menteur Pass were sunk when environmental groups sued the
district. They believed that the environmental impact statement did
not adequately address several potential problems, including impacts
on Lake Pontchartrains ecosystem and damage to wetlands.
Ultimately, an agreement between the parties resulted in a consent
decree to forego the structures at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur
Pass The new initial feasibility study will look at protecting the
area between the Pearl River and Mississippi River from a Category 5
storm . (Emphasis added.)
The article added, [A]lternatives that would be studied in the
initial feasibility report are: Construction of floodgate structures,
with environmental modifications, at Rigolets and Chef Pass.
(Emphasis added.) The Times-Picayune recorded last May, the corps
wants to take another look [at building the floodgates] using more
environmentally sensitive construction than was previously available.
This time the Army Corps of Engineers would modify the original plans
because of the environmentalists. However, the project was already
delayed more than two decades because of the environmentalists
lawsuit. If begun immediately it would take another two decades to
complete: a 40-year delay caused by the Green Left.
Planning for a category five hurricane was, indeed, visionary
thinking. Few people believed such a storm would take place more often
than once every few centuries, and no one had the political will to
fight for the funding such a project would necessitate. However,
scientists had long warned about New Orleans vulnerability to the
potential for massive loss of life caused by such things as the
environmentalists lawsuit. A National Geographic article, written
after a smaller hurricane last year, captured the sentiments of one
such expert:
The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before
landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five
at 24 hours coming from the worst direction, says Joe Suhayda, a
retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent
30 years studying the coast I dont think people realize how
precarious we are.
As it turned out, this is exactly how events played out during the
next hurricane, one year later. USA Today noted, the levees the
government had constructed were no match for the vortex of this force
of nature. Soon Katrina pushed inland:
Hurricane Katrina pushed Lake Pontchartrain over the flood walls...The
spilling water then undermined the walls, and they toppled Lake
Pontchartrain, a body half the size of Rhode Island, was losing about
a foot of water every 10 hours into New Orleans.
The rushing lake soon overwhelmed the citys pumps. The ever-rising
water soon mixed with sewage, creating a toxic liquid mixture that
burned the skin on contact. When the flood levels grounded the city
buses Mayor Ray Nagin never deployed, it denied thousands of New
Orleans poorest and feeblest an escape.
Despite the mayors apparent incompetence, these floodgates
environmental activists sued to prevent from being constructed may
have kept a flood from consuming the city to the extent it did in the
first place. The current programs aimed at reinforcing existing levees
but would only prove effective against a level three hurricane; they
were not adequate for a level five storm like Katrina. Moreover, they
did not fortify the specific areas the government sought to protect,
to keep Lake Pontchartrain from flooding the entire city, which
everyone knew posed a danger to a city below sea level. In other
words, this plan would have saved thousands of lives and kept one of
the nations greatest cities from lying in ruins for a decade.
At a minimum, such a plan would have staved off a significant portion
of the disaster thats unfolded before our eyes.
Worse yet, the environmentalists ultimate decision to reinforce
existing levees may have actually further harmed the Big Easy. There
is at least one expert who claims the New Orleans levees made no
difference in fact, they contributed to the problem. Deputy Director
of the LSU Hurricane Center and Director of the Center for the Study
Public Health Impacts by Hurricanes Ivor van Heerden said, The levees
have literally starved our wetlands to death by directing all of
that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Thirty years after its legal action, Save Our Wetlands boasts,
SOWL's legacy lives on and on within the heart and spirit of every
man, woman, child, bird, red fish, speckle trout, croakers, etc.
Despite its pious rhetoric, the environmental Lefts true legacy will
be on display in New Orleans for years to come.
By Michael Tremoglie
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 8, 2005
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19418
As radical environmentalists continue to blame the ferocity of
Hurricane Katrinas devastation on President Bushs 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 build fortifications at
two strategic locations, which would keep massive storms on the Gulf
of Mexico from causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city. An
article in the May 28, 2005, New Orleans Times-Picayune stated, Under
the original plan, floodgate-type structures would have been built at
the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving
from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain.
The floodgates would have blocked the flow of water from the Gulf of
Mexico, through Lake Borgne, through the Rigolets [and Chef Mentuer]
into Lake Pontchartrain, declared Professor Gregory Stone, the James
P. Morgan Distinguished Professor and Director of the Coastal Studies
Institute of Louisiana State University. This would likely have
reduced storm surge coming from the Gulf and into the Lake
Pontchartrain, Professor Stone told Michael P. Tremoglie during an
interview on September 6. The professor concluded, [T]hese floodgates
would have alleviated the flooding of New Orleans caused by Hurricane
Katrina.
The New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers and Professor Stone were not
the only people cognizant of the consequences that could and did
result because of the environmental activists. While speaking with
Sean Hannity on his radio show on Labor Day, former Louisiana
Congressman and Speaker of the House Bob Livingston also referred to
environmentalists whose litigation prevented hurricane prevention
projects.
In other words, unlike other programs including the ones leftists
like Sid Blumenthal excoriated the president for not funding these
constructions might have prevented the loss of life experienced in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Why was this project aborted? As the Times-Picayune wrote, Those
plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued
to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's
eco-system. (Emphasis added.) Specifically, in 1977, a state
environmentalist group known as Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) sued to have
it stopped. SOWL stated the proposed Rigolets and Chef Menteur
floodgates of the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Prevention Project
would have a negative effect on the area surrounding Lake
Pontchartrain. Further, SOWLs recollection of this case demonstrates
they considered this move the first step in a perfidious design to
drain Lake Pontchartrain entirely and open the area to dreaded
capitalist investment.
On December 30, 1977, U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz Jr. issued
an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake
Pontchartrain hurricane protection project, demanding the engineers
draw up a second environmental impact statement, three years after the
corps submitted the first one. In one of the most ironic
pronouncements of all time, Judge Schwartz wrote, it is the opinion
of the Court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they, and
in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the
barrier project based upon the August, 1974 FEIS [federal
environmental impact statement] is allowed to continue.
If the Greens prevailed, it was not because the forces of common sense
did not make a compelling case. SOWLs account reveals that during the
course of the trial the defense counsel, Gerald Gallinghouse a
Republican U.S. Attorney who acted as a special prosecutor during the
Carter administration felt so strongly that the project should
continue that he told the judge he would go before the United States
Congress with [Democratic Louisiana Congressman] F. Edward Hebert to
pass a resolution, exempting the Hurricane Barrier Project from the
rules and regulations of the National Environmental Policy Act
because, in his opinion, [this plan] is necessary to protect the
citizens of New Orleans from a hurricane. Despite this, the judge
ruled in favor of the environmentalists. Ultimately, the project was
aborted in favor of building up existing levees.
However, the old plan lived on in the minds of those who put human
beings first. The Army Corps of Engineers as recently as last year had
publicly discussed resuming the practice. The September-October 2004
edition of Riverside (the magazine of the New Orleans District Army
Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Office) referred to this lawsuit and
project. Eric Lincolns article titled, Old Plans Revived for
Category 5 Hurricane Protection, stated:
In 1977, plans for hurricane protection structures at the Rigolets
and Chef Menteur Pass were sunk when environmental groups sued the
district. They believed that the environmental impact statement did
not adequately address several potential problems, including impacts
on Lake Pontchartrains ecosystem and damage to wetlands.
Ultimately, an agreement between the parties resulted in a consent
decree to forego the structures at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur
Pass The new initial feasibility study will look at protecting the
area between the Pearl River and Mississippi River from a Category 5
storm . (Emphasis added.)
The article added, [A]lternatives that would be studied in the
initial feasibility report are: Construction of floodgate structures,
with environmental modifications, at Rigolets and Chef Pass.
(Emphasis added.) The Times-Picayune recorded last May, the corps
wants to take another look [at building the floodgates] using more
environmentally sensitive construction than was previously available.
This time the Army Corps of Engineers would modify the original plans
because of the environmentalists. However, the project was already
delayed more than two decades because of the environmentalists
lawsuit. If begun immediately it would take another two decades to
complete: a 40-year delay caused by the Green Left.
Planning for a category five hurricane was, indeed, visionary
thinking. Few people believed such a storm would take place more often
than once every few centuries, and no one had the political will to
fight for the funding such a project would necessitate. However,
scientists had long warned about New Orleans vulnerability to the
potential for massive loss of life caused by such things as the
environmentalists lawsuit. A National Geographic article, written
after a smaller hurricane last year, captured the sentiments of one
such expert:
The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before
landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five
at 24 hours coming from the worst direction, says Joe Suhayda, a
retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent
30 years studying the coast I dont think people realize how
precarious we are.
As it turned out, this is exactly how events played out during the
next hurricane, one year later. USA Today noted, the levees the
government had constructed were no match for the vortex of this force
of nature. Soon Katrina pushed inland:
Hurricane Katrina pushed Lake Pontchartrain over the flood walls...The
spilling water then undermined the walls, and they toppled Lake
Pontchartrain, a body half the size of Rhode Island, was losing about
a foot of water every 10 hours into New Orleans.
The rushing lake soon overwhelmed the citys pumps. The ever-rising
water soon mixed with sewage, creating a toxic liquid mixture that
burned the skin on contact. When the flood levels grounded the city
buses Mayor Ray Nagin never deployed, it denied thousands of New
Orleans poorest and feeblest an escape.
Despite the mayors apparent incompetence, these floodgates
environmental activists sued to prevent from being constructed may
have kept a flood from consuming the city to the extent it did in the
first place. The current programs aimed at reinforcing existing levees
but would only prove effective against a level three hurricane; they
were not adequate for a level five storm like Katrina. Moreover, they
did not fortify the specific areas the government sought to protect,
to keep Lake Pontchartrain from flooding the entire city, which
everyone knew posed a danger to a city below sea level. In other
words, this plan would have saved thousands of lives and kept one of
the nations greatest cities from lying in ruins for a decade.
At a minimum, such a plan would have staved off a significant portion
of the disaster thats unfolded before our eyes.
Worse yet, the environmentalists ultimate decision to reinforce
existing levees may have actually further harmed the Big Easy. There
is at least one expert who claims the New Orleans levees made no
difference in fact, they contributed to the problem. Deputy Director
of the LSU Hurricane Center and Director of the Center for the Study
Public Health Impacts by Hurricanes Ivor van Heerden said, The levees
have literally starved our wetlands to death by directing all of
that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Thirty years after its legal action, Save Our Wetlands boasts,
SOWL's legacy lives on and on within the heart and spirit of every
man, woman, child, bird, red fish, speckle trout, croakers, etc.
Despite its pious rhetoric, the environmental Lefts true legacy will
be on display in New Orleans for years to come.