ChimpCo Slashes Lousiana Erosion Control Project By Over 90%

[hatrack]

LAKE CHARLES, La. — "Louisiana's campaign to launch a $14-billion program to save the state's coast and marshlands is in jeopardy after the White House set aside its request for a 30-year engineering project to stem widespread erosion. The White House has countered with a short-term, scaled-back version of the plan. The details are still being worked out, but state officials say the Bush administration is expected to propose spending less than $1 billion over 10 years. Even the smaller version is far from certain: It faces competition from other environmental proposals before Congress at a time when government resources are stretched thin.

"Everybody was kind of blindsided," said Gus Stacy III, director of the McNeese State University Louisiana Environmental Research Center here. "We thought we had a swell of support. I just don't think they want to do it. And we do not have the resources to do it alone."

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Administration officials have also declined to release a much-anticipated report called the Louisiana Coastal Area study — the main blueprint for saving the coast. The White House says the document is not ready, although its first drafts were finished more than a year ago.

Many here, including conservatives who rarely break ranks publicly with the administration, say they are frustrated by the White House's response. Rep. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who is a strong backer of the White House agenda, said that administration "bean counters" had failed to grasp the sense of urgency that the state had attempted to convey in Washington. Vitter acknowledged that assessing and reversing the damage would bring a "major, major price tag." He met recently with White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten to seek release of the blueprint and to ask for "full, more immediate federal recognition of the magnitude of the program."

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Maybe Chimpy doesn't really want to win Lousiana after all . . .

[phantom power]

1. this is the smaller govt everybody was dreaming of...

I hope they all like it when it takes away *their* beloved government services and projects.

[hatrack]

2. Actually, this is one of the few worthwhile water projects in decades

Lousiana now loses one football field's worth of land every 20 minutes to erosion. Big chunks of the delta and the southern parishes which were there 20 or even 10 years ago simply no longer exist.

Most of this is due to the straitjacketed Mississippi, which no longer drops its remaining silt load into the delta. Thousands of canals, invasive animals (the nutria, which likes to dig holes in dikes), rising sea levels and more storms also conspire to make things worse.

So, after years of review and study, they came up with a long-term plan to try and address this problem. It's expensive as hell, but the problems are huge and in the bone.

But as you note, this is "smaller government" - let's see how they deal with it.

[phantom power]

3. exactly

People are going to re-discover that government provides (or used to provide) valuable services. Sadly, they'll learn this by only by losing them and living with the consequences.