Maggie's Farm

Katrina, Environmentalists, The Corps of Engineers, and Money

Powerline highlighted this piece in the WSJ. Good. A sample:

"...the Corps hardly has a record of rationality. It claims that Katrina produced surges higher than the levees that Congress funded it to build. But Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center found that "the flooding of most of New Orleans" came from breaches of floodwalls on canals adjoining Lake Pontchartrain; Katrina's surges did not pour over the levees but breached them because the Corps' floodwalls were shoddy. The barrier stopped by the lawsuit was designed to keep storm surges out of the lake, so it would have reduced the pressure on these floodwalls. And now, as we have seen, Hurricane Rita drove new surges into the lake.

The Corps actually contributed to increased pressure from the surges on Lake Pontchartrain by building the little-used Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile long canal that destroyed 20,000 acres of wetlands. The Corps causes floods across the country by destroying wetlands and channeling rivers. Meanwhile, the federal government encourages construction in flood plains by providing flood insurance."