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Unnatural Disaster: Louisiana's Crisis in Policy and Planning The policy decisions we made that got us here, and the sustainable alternative that can move us forward By Brian Azcona and Jason Neville September 4, 2005 In the wake of this devastating Hurricane, when the thousands of stranded people have finally been moved to dry ground, people will rightly question how such a disaster could occur; they will wonder how our home town of New Orleans could simply fill up like a bowl and wash away almost our entire human habitat. Some may point figures at government, blaming the Army Corps of Engineers for faulty construction. Others may attribute the disaster to the power of the storm that the USA Today labeled the "160 mile/hr Monster." In reality a single cause cannot explain much of anything; but if we wish to learn something from this nightmare, it makes sense to concentrate on those actors over which we can exert some influence: the environmental and urban planning/engineering dimensions. To do so, we must evaluate critically and honestly the policy decisions we made leading up to the disaster, so we can plan wisely and sustainably when we rebuild our much-loved home. The Politics of Nature Politicians, policy-makers, academics, and committed citizens have long recognized the dangers of a potentially disastrous hurricane. President Carter created FEMA in 1979 to address the country's worst-case disaster scenarios, and New Orleans has consistently been at the top of that list. In 1995 International Panel on Climate Change of the United Nations identified New Orleans as the most vulnerable North American city to global climate change, because sea-level rise and elevating temperatures of the Gulf of Mexico intensify the frequency and power of hurricanes. The recent destruction of human life, property and one this nation's greatest historic and cultural treasures demands a critical assessment of how authorities confronted and prepared for a hurricane strike that was seen as inevitable. For the crisis of New Orleans is the quagmire of unsustainability, which is a problem the entire nation faces. Sadly enough, after the realization of the worst-case scenario, it seems the best case scenario might be that we pause, question and prepare a plan that will work this time around. Media commentators treat Katrina as the culmination of the bad idea called New Orleans: a city whose precarious existence is the fault of poor site selection in 1699 by French explorers. They ignore the more recent history of dramatic landscape alternations, which exacerbated the city's exposure to floods. The reality is that in the last century, over 1.2 million acres of land have disappeared, in large part, as a consequence of land-misuse-that includes oil, gas, and timber extraction; industrial, commercial, agricultural, and residential development. These economic activities required destructive modifications to the coastal areas such as erosive canals, levees, and drainage systems. Historically, these coastal wetlands provided invaluable flood protection by acting as a sponge to soak-up the menace of storm surge. Where land once stood is now open water, providing fuel to the furry of hurricanes. And because the developed land-compacted soils, pavement and concrete-cannot hold water from rains and floods, all water must eventually go back to the Gulf. In effect, this combination constituted a hydrological contradiction to growth in southeastern Louisiana: development reduced the absorbent capacity of the region, while simultaneously increasing runoff and toxicity. In other words, economic growth translated into more water, more danger, and a greater and increasingly imminent catastrophe. For this reason, flood mitigation-not to be confused with the traditional methods of flood protection (e.g., levees and pumps)-largely took the form of coastal restoration. Policy-makers acknowledged the only way to save southeast Louisiana and New Orleans was to rebuild the coastal wetlands. Early initiatives began in the early 1980's, but a comprehensive framework and rational was laid out in 1998 in a plan called Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana (www.lacoast.gov/Programs/2050/MainReport/report1.pdf). The plan marked a moment of inter-agency collaboration on federal, state, and local levels of government and constituted an attempt to devise a "clear vision" for all management and restoration activities concerning the Louisiana coastal zone. On the level of appearances, all interest groups in the state, including big oil, supported restoration, or at least, the quest for $14 billion of federal funds to finance restoration construction projects. Shell Oil sponsored a public relations blitz to mobilize national support called the "America's Wetlands" campaign. The president of one of the region's largest banks joined the Governor's task force to garner the political will at the local, regional and national levels. An army of scientists and engineers carried out the research and planning for one of the largest public works projects in history. It was believed that the only way save southeast Louisiana and New Orleans was to rebuild the coastal wetlands. To date, over a billion dollars has already been dedicated to actual projects since the first efforts began. MR-GO: Model of Unsustainability Although the effectiveness of these works is debatable, the hypocrisy coastal restoration euphoria is not. Many people tirelessly worked for this mission (e.g. Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana) but unsustainable development continued unabated, and the most critical government agency (i.e. Army Corps of Engineers) refused to correct previous mistakes refused to correct previous mistakes that made erosion and flooding worse. One of the most offensive examples of government hypocrisy-in addition to a total disregard for public safety on the part of business interests-involves a canal called the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MR-GO). The MR-GO is 70 mile ship channel that connects the Port of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico in a route as straight as a ruler. Eyewitness accounts and hydraulic models suggest this waterway brought in Katrina's storm surges which broke the levee in eastern New Orleans. This water has saturated the 9th Ward, eastern New Orleans, and St. Barnard Parish. In these areas have seen the most severe flooding; some 40,000 homes have been destroyed. At the time of this writing, nobody knows how many people have lost their lives. At the behest of Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, locally known as the Dock Board, the Corps initiated construction in the late 1950s. Boosters for the Port claimed that the MR-GO would convert New Orleans into the next Rotterdam and encourage an "industrial renaissance" in St. Bernard Parish. These lofty ambitions never materialized and though the canal excelled in generating controversy, it failed to stimulate economic growth or draw much ship traffic even though it cuts 40 miles off the trip by water from New Orleans to the Gulf by traversing the marshes of St. Bernard Parish. The only growth locals witnessed occurred in the canal itself, which expanded from its original width of 500 feet to 2500 feet in some places because the wake of giant ships causes the canal's banks to collapse. Critics attributed over 40,000 acres of wetland loss to this "marsh-eating monster" and described it as a "hurricane superhighway" that would exacerbate the risk of deadly floods. In response, a number of committed individuals and organizations across cultural, economic and racial lines demanded that the Corps close the MR-GO (e.g. Coalition to Close MR-GO, Gulf Restoration Network, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, and St. Bernard Sportsman's League). While the Corps preached the virtues restoration to Congress, it refused to correct its own deeds of environmental destruction. It ignored the public outcry; it failed to seriously take into account public safety; its policy protected not people but the economic interest of port industry and steamship companies. Officials from the Dock Board and the Corps argued of a new lock system on the Mississippi River could permit the closure of the MR-GO. This economically and ecologically unjustifiable scheme would have cost $700-800 million and could not be complete until 2017. Critics called these locks an unjustified waste and drew attention to social and ecological impacts (Taxpayers for Common Sense and the National Wildlife Federation report on the Army Corps of Engineers identify lock expansion as one the twenty-five most wasteful Corps' projects in the country: http://www.taxpayer.net/corpswatch/). After years of fighting, nothing changed and the worst predictions of catastrophic floods have turned to be true. The MR-GO represents the most egregious tension between the money-making imperative of businesses with environmental protection and public safety. Since the problem of land loss with all its consequences for flooding have been acknowledged, government agencies have made no real attempt to mediate this conflict. With all attention on building new land, government shirked its responsibility to protect what still existed. More vacation homes were constructed on the shores of the barrier island and in the marshes. Also against citizen protest, plans were made to extend Interstate 49 through the southeast part of the state, which would stimulate sprawl further into flood prone areas. Paradoxically, local politicians marketed a new highway to Port Fourchon, the nation's largest oil and gas port, as a restoration initiative. Subdivisions filled wetlands on the shores of Lake Ponchartrain suburban houses replaced that invaluable natural sponge that provided strong hurricane storm surges. Today, that lake is situated on my hometown New Orleans. The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans this week-decades in the making-was more preventable than has been acknowledged by portrayals of Katrina as an invincible natural disaster. As New Orleanians, we must take certain responsibility for the policy decisions that exacerbated this week's already-infamous disaster. The Army Corps transformed the landscape at the request of public officials, who eagerly worked to please business interests at the cost of public safety. We must also take responsibility for the rebuilding effort ambitiously, cooperatively and sustainably. The Sustainable Alternative: Working Cooperatively for the Next Generations of Louisianans Many coastal communities with very similar ecologies as Louisiana have embarked on ambitious land reclamation, natural wastewater treatments, and forward-thinking environmental engineering. For instance: like New Orleans, the Netherlands is a shallow sub-sea level coastal area. In fact, over one-fourth of the entire country is below sea level. A network of canals and dykes helps prevent flooding by regulating the water tables and efficiently draining floodwaters without resorting to massive and perilous engineering schemes such as MR-GO. Much of the Netherlands has actually been "reclaimed" from the North Sea by building land and expanding the coastal areas; some Dutch provinces are entirely reclaimed land. These land reclamation projects, known as polders even help promote a cooperative political environment known as the Polder Model which encourages open communication and collective management, and shared responsibility of the polders to ensure the region's survival. These innovations were the result of a strikingly similar disaster: in 1953 a catastrophic flooding of coastal areas killed 1,835 people and forced the evacuation of 70,000 more. Ten thousand animals drowned, and 4,500 buildings were destroyed. Damage was estimated (not adjusted for inflation) at over $500 million USD. The innovative and sustainable Dutch response to the disaster, the "DeltaWorks," an ambitious and sustainable system of controlled dams and levees which have drastically reduced the threat of flooding and improved agricultural output by keeping out saltwater from freshwater bodies (also a problem in coastal Louisiana). The Deltaworks has been declared one of the "Seven Marvels of the Modern World" by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Whereas the anonymous saying "built where God never intended a city to be built" continues in the popular lore of New Orleans, the Dutch have a similar-albeit more assertive- motto: "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands." Other projects in similar geographical areas and facing similar challenges in places such as the Mediterranean, South America and the South Pacific offer inspiration for a sustainable New Orleans. Ecologists and engineers constructed new wastewater-processing wetlands in Brazil known as Living Machines which "eliminate the need for the chlorine, polymers, aluminum salts, and the other chemicals used in conventional wastewater treatment plants. A biological treatment plant costs about the same or less to construct, especially for small-capacity systems. It yields valuable fertilizers and soil amendments instead of toxic chemical hazards, looks like a water garden, greenhouse, or wetland, doesn't smell bad, and yields safer, higher-quality water." This would be an ideal project to put the people of Southeast Louisiana to work: building wetlands and integrating them seamlessly into the natural ecology to process human wastes naturally and cost-effectively. In New Zealand, costal areas in the north-mostly small towns but increasingly larger cities-have been constructing wetlands to provide safe and cost-effective wastewater management. Building small- and large-scale wetlands in devastated coastal regions will put coastal residents back to work restoring the native habitat while providing a ecologically sustainable and effective means of treating human, livestock, and agricultural wastewater. Elsewhere in the world Italy has recently launched an ambitious plan to protect the sinking tourist city of Venice from continuing to suffer from frequent flooding. At a cost of $2.5 billion, the Italian government has approved building "floating" dams designed to protect Venice from high tides and frequent winter floods. The floating barriers will rise whenever a tide exceeds 3.3 ft. According to Popular Mechanics, "A total of about 80 steel barriers will be hinged at the bottom of the Adriatic Sea just outside the city's three harbor mouths." Each hollow barrier will be 100 ft. high, 65 ft. wide and 15 ft. thick. Compressed air will push the water out of the barriers, making them float and stick out above the surface at a 50° angle. Our city and coastal areas are indeed unique in this world. While none of these plans presented is a perfect solution for our city and region , they illustrate that our problems are not unique or insurmountable. And even while the projects have drawn concerns in the areas they have been implemented, they are examples of the creativity that will be needed to redevelop the Southeast Louisiana coast and the city of New Orleans. Imagine a regional public works project to reclaim land, build a series of small-scale levees and canals, preserve our unique cultural heritage, re-establish bountiful resources for fishing and hunting-all of which could facilitate a ambitious and cooperative spirit among all of the peoples of Southeast Louisiana. Imagine the people of Southeast Louisiana working together to envision and build a world-class system of flood protections that would shield our communities from hurricanes and flooding, nurturing our critical wetlands, improve our agricultural productivity, provide dignified and well-paid work for our people, and help the people of Southeast Louisiana maintain our unique cultural heritage and ensure that future generations will live in safety, prosperity, and equality. Though campaigns such as "America's Wetlands" have tried with varying degrees of success to gain the nationwide attention to this looming national crisis, the entire country-the entire world-is paying attention now. Let's ensure the same mistakes aren't made when we rebuild our state, as we must. Let's rise to this monumental challenge-with creativity, enthusiasm, optimism, future focus, and prudence-of building an equitable and sustainable future for Southeast Louisiana and the people living here. Brian Azcona and was
born in New Orleans. He received his bachelor's of science degree from
Tulane University and his Master's of Sociology from the University of
New Orleans. He has taught sociology at Xavier University and the
University of New Orleans. As part of his research for the Center of
Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology at the University of New
Orleans, he examined the interrelationships between culture, politics,
economy and Louisiana coastal land loss. He is currently working on
his Ph. D. in Sociology at the University of Kansas. This article is the work of the author(s) only and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Green Party of the United States. If you wish to send a message to the editors regarding this or any item on the website, please email us.
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