Head Of US Army Corps Of Engineers - New Orleans Can No Longer Be Protected From Storm Surges

[hatrack]

New Orleans can no longer be protected from hurricane storm surges, according to the US army general in charge of the city's defences. General Robert Van Antwerp, chief of the US Army Corps of Engineers, said his team was in "persistent conflict" with the Mississippi river. "If you ask can I protect the city, the answer is no. Can I reduce the risk? Yes.

"We can develop better early warning systems, better evacuation plans, better levees to hold back most of the water, but we cannot stop levees being overtopped and the city flooded." He declined to say whether this meant the city should be abandoned altogether and relocated inland. "That is outside my brief," he said.

Four years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and caused a political crisis for President George Bush, a religion, science and environment conference in the city was told that half of Louisiana will be lost by the end of the century. The vast Mississippi delta is sinking a centimetre a year. Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, and will be two metres higher by the year 2100. Much of the delta is less than a metre above sea level, so most communities will be submerged.

The oil and gas industry's massive canal and pipeline network, which provides 35% of the country's gas and oil, cuts through the state's freshwater swamps and marshes, allowing vast quantities of sea water from the Gulf to wash into the delta and kill many of the trees and plants that protect the land from storm surges. Chris Macaluso, in charge of the newly created Office of Coastal Protection, says 2,300 square miles of marsh and swamp have been lost because of salt-water intrusion in 50 years. In the four-month hurricane season, land disappears at the rate of an acre every six minutes or 25 to 40 square miles a year.

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/25/usa-natural-disasters

[pscot]

1. People won't like this idea

and we tend to ignore or deny the reality of ideas we don't like. The proactive response would be to convene a panel of scientists and engineers to look at this. The delta won't be the only place threatened by rising water.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Even if you ignore the rising sea level problem, New Orleans is still toast.

Because it's sinking. A few inches every year. Unless that can be reversed somehow, the city is ultimately doomed.

If you own property there, don't.

[annabanana]

2. I'm sorry?. .Isn't the Netherlands entirely below sea level?

What does that mean, It can't be done?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

3. I think it means it's not worth doing.

Sure, most anything can be accomplished with enough resources.
Is keeping N.O. above water worth it given the present course we are headed?

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Is there even a credible estimate on what it would cost?

It's a city below sea level, on the coast, backstopped by a huge lake... Facing yearly storm lashings of unpredictable intensity and duration. (Does Holland get hit with anything like Hurricanes?)

Frankly, I think Venice should have been abandoned long ago, too.

[pscot]

6. About a quarter of the Netherlands

is below sea level. That's roughly 9000 sq kilometers. The dykes are spoken of as one of the seven wonders of the modern world, according to Wikipedia. They cost a mint of money and protect 60% of the Dutch population. Where are we going to find the collectve will to borrow $100 billion to protect 10000 sq kilometers of marshland, plus one city of 300,000?

[Braulio]

7. No and Yes, and why bother?

The answers to your questions - no and yes. No, the Netherlands isn't below sea level. And Yes, it can be done. But the real question is, why bother? Is it worth it? The answer is - no good reason to bother, and no, it's not worth it. USA has lots of good land to build on, and there's no need for the American government to borrow from the Chinese* to build walls around a city below sea level, when there's plenty of land above sea level north of Lake Pontchartrain.

*If you are unaware, the USA today is a debtor nation, borrowing money from China to sustain its war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan, and any other places the neocons and the Israel lobby ask you guys to fight. According to the IMF, you are well on your way to being broke, at which time you'll have to sell Hawaii to Japan, and California to the Chinese. :-)

[Canuckistanian]

8. The destruction of the marshland was tragic

The marshlands could have mitigated the storm surges.

But no, it was considered "useless swampland" to be developed into "something useful".

It already was useful.

[BrightKnight]

9. Bullshit!!, New Orleans is not optional, and

why haven't some of the lower areas of the city been elevated with fill soil?