The USACOE Can't Build Proper Levees in NOLA, but Will Try

in Hancock County, MS and along the coastal counties of MS. (http://www.sunherald.com/278/story/143955.html or http://www.topix.net/content/kri/2007/09/corps-proposes-levee-seawalls).

The US Army Corps of Engineers held a meeting tonight in Bay St. Louis, MS and they are proposing many, many miles of levees along the CSX railroad right-of-way. This will not only divide and/or destroy the towns of Bay St. Louis, Waveland, Lakeshore, Ainsley, Clermont Harbor, and others in the southern part of the county, it will also wipe out a major portion of the property tax revenues for Hancock County. This levee is only a small part of the proposal. The Corps wishes to purchase land from private owners, like the Hollywood Casino, as well as private residences and businesses for this action. This will only cost about a billion dollars or so. The Corps is also proposing to build seawalls, non-structural levees, dunes, restoration sites, and elevated roadways. That too will only run about another billion dollars or so. We are told this proposal will save money in the long run.

Of course, we can trust the Corps of Engineers. We can trust the Corps to calculate exactly how much this is going to cost, right? We can trust them to do their engineering sums correctly the first time, right? We can trust the oversee the construction, right? We can trust them to oversee the long-term maintenance of these structures, right? Yep, just like in New Orleans.

Read the stories above (the story of tonight's meeting will be in tomorrow's paper - www.sunherald.com) and then tell your "representative" in Washington how much you want spent on this boondoggle.

How many Hurricane seasons will it take?

See, to build this zone between the levees and seawall, they have to buy up all the property. There were houses and small businesses all along the coast that were wiped out, and many that weren't destroyed between the tracks and the beach. If they had made this proposal a couple of months after the storm, the owners of the land under all that rubble would have wanted full value, if they could be encouraged to sell at all. Now, two years later, people are more likely to just give and want no part of it. They've owned slabs for two years now--the hope is that they'll take whatever low ball value they can get.

Not to mention, it's taken this long for the insurance companies to finish screwing them, so the feds had to wait in line.

This is a completely different type of screw-up. The levees in NOLA were meant to prevent canals from flooding their banks. These levees in Mississippi are meant to break a hurricane surge before it wipes out the coast. NOLA levees keep water in, these keep it out.

Seems to me that it's a bad idea. First, it's extremely rare (like, it happens every forty years) that a storm surge makes it to the railroad tracks they want to build the levees in front of. The tracks themselves already act as a levee for the homes behind it for all but the most extreme storms (Katrina, Camille). It seems to me that building these levees would create a barrier between the residents and the beach, meaning the casinos and the condos would own it. That's something this section of the Coast has always fought to prevent. Drive along the beach in Alabama and Florida and you can't see the water past the condos. The MS Coast has always refused to allow that.

A second part of the plan is to raise the seawall, which is right along the beach, blocking the view to anyone not higher than the seawall. Again, further separation of the people from the beach.

In short, it looks to me like they are trying to create a nice resort casino zone and keep the residents away from it, unless they pay. All this to protect against a storm that comes every forty years.

And the worst part is it won't work. The storm surge in Katrina was devastating, but it wasn't the only cause of the damage. When you have a thirty foot wall of water pushing into the coast for several hours, the rivers flowing into the Gulf back up, and the bayous and bays rise. The seawall might break the storm surge, but all the flooding behind would be just as bad, and maybe worse, since the levees meant to hold the water out would also hold the water behind them in, making the rising water flooding much worse.

At least that's how I see what's being proposed. I haven't heard the full details, and maybe some of that is taken into account. But so far to me it seems like a bad idea, and maybe even more of a land grab than an intended solution to hurricanes. Given Bush's mentality that the government exists only to enrich the rich, I'm not encouraged. I can see some use for levees along Back Bay and maybe St Louis Bay, but a lot of this plan just seems wrong.

Someone tell me if I've got it all wrong. Wouldn't be the first time.