America's Wetland: "At the America's WETLAND Community & Culture Summit, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and Secretary Jack Caldwell, Louisiana Department of Natural Resources, presented an AW Flag to Mayor Ray Nagin, City of New Orleans, showing the City of New Orleans support for saving coastal Louisiana."While reading the press releases and "facts" on the America's WETLAND web page it is not possible to find their ENTIRE position on the levee management in the N.O. area. Their main goal is for "Restoration of Coastal Louisiana" and their contention is that the existing Levee system implemented in 1927 has diverted the Mississippi from where it naturally wishes to go... DUH! That's the whole point.
Well, their contention is that this is ultimately dangerous for New Orleans and contributed to the city's exposure to Katrina, but something doesn't wash here: Katrina actually didn't hit NO that hard, it was just the sheer VOLUME of rain that breeched the levees causing the floods. The city would have been saved if the levees had been larger and fortified from their eighty year-old construction, but this is a plan that this organization has not supported. They prefer to re-route the Mississippi in such a way that the coastline is restored, not necessarily in a way that increases the levee capacity.
Their priority has been protection of the wetlands, not protection of the city. And every Democratic politician from the state can be found on their web page as a supporter.
No comments:
Post a Comment