Need Info... BushCo To Blame Environmentalists For Levee Breaks!

[ChiciB1]

Does anyone else have any information on this?? While watching Democracy Now there was a comment made by Amy Goodman that "the corrupt ones" are now seeking to blame environmentalists for the levee breaks in NO. I didn't hear any particulars, nor do I have a link, but this IDEA does NOT surprise me.

The mea culpas were simply platitudes in my opinion!

[noahmijo]

1. ummmm.....So it's the environmentalists who have had total control

over spending on local and state projects not the Executive branch..that would be Bushco who has authority to cut and implement policy....

Let's put it this way. Bushco and his gang have been in charge for 5 years and have had the nerve to tell the America, our Allies, workers of all types to go fuck themselves......but when it comes to environmentalists....well damn that's just where he can't bring himself to step up.

[Canuckistanian]

2. This should be interesting....

What possible reason would an evironmentalist be against a levee?
Other than it not being a natural feature?

These days the whole Mississippi delta is un-natural. The course of the river, the canals, the wetlands, the sediment deposits are all human-controlled.

OK, so were environmentalists against strong levees? And did they control the funding and maintenance for the levees? Nope on both counts.

This has turned out to be an ecological disaster, just as was predicted.

So, environmentalists against levees? Nuh-uh.

[ChiciB1]

3. Hey... I DON'T Buy It At All! Just Heard It And Wanted More

information about this. These people at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have been doing "hard work" you know! Just ANOTHER tidbit to point a finger at somebody OTHER than themselves!

Does ANYONE think they aren't capable of this type of thing???

[democracyindanger]

4. I think you're referring to

something I heard on NPR--I don't think it was Amy Goodman. It's all about the Endangered Species Act. Richard Pombo (R-CA) is leading the charge to dismantle the Act. He claims that the Act delayed repairs to a levee in CA, which eventually broke, killing a few people. Scientists familiar with it say that Pombo's twisting the facts. Levee repairs generally take years to go through the process. Pombo's claim that the presence of Elderberry bushes (which is considered potential habitat for...I forget what the animal was, it may have been a beetle) prevented work on the levee is false because there weren't any Elderberry bushes near the levee.

[ChiciB1]

5. No... It Was Democracy Now... I Haven't Listened To NPR Lately

But you have the correct information. I was just wondering what the follow-up was about. I hope it's only Pombo and not the rest of the LOONIES!!

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. I thought rawstory had a good story.

[scottjor]

7. Blaming Enviromentalists

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=9104

[newyawker99]

16. Hi scottjor!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[bluedawg12]

8. RW hacks are claiming that

environmentalists objected to levee's- but it turns out this was on levee's along the Mississippi river the levee's on Lake Potchatrain failed. Not the same issues as far as I could tell.

Also, Shrubco has allowed development of coastal wet lands, and they are a natural barrier to hurricane's--callous disregard for nature in favor of money, nature bit back.

I saw, CNN or MSNBC, this dispicable porky repugthug blabber about these talking points-depesperate effort at blame shifting and overt lies.

Here's somthing:
http://www.angerpoint.com/postview_361.asp

One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to hurricanes is the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once stood as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the water. The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a political party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to play, "The Democrats did it," or, "It's all Reagan's fault." Many environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference with the natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem, cutting off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.
But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term policies like letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God, there are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that the Bush administration repealed those policies--ordering federal agencies to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.


Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands.
Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3 or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First Rule of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).


Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off for a while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the attention span of a gnat,

[ChiciB1]

10. Thanks To You ALL For The Links...

Doesn't matter WHERE they were talking about, for those who don't delve into the REAL facts or the REAL truth, this type of hype has LEGS!!!

What a load of crap!!!!

[skids]

9. Wrong levee. And let's not forget those wetlands, BTW.

If this is the same one I am thinking of...

A) That levy didn't break. That was on the Mississippi river. It held.

B) The only "hold up" was the USACE refusing to do a study. All the ebvironmentalists wnated them to do was do a damn study. A couple of guys with coke bottle glasses, a few months, a small amount of cash, and they could build their damn levee. It was the USACE that was being unreasonable.

and, of course we have C)

The fact that the wetlands could have protected NOLA from the hurricane, but they didn't because they have been disappearing. Guess who wants to protect the wetlands? That's right, those evil environmentalists again.

(EDIT: Oh, and I forgot to add, when you are done serving a freeper his own ass, be sure to say goodbye like this:

FUCK YOU AND THE TALKING POINT YOU RODE IN ON.)

[SSX]

11. Heres where the story broke

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050916/NEWS0110/509160369/1260
It's from my local paper.

[bluedawg12]

12. Repugs hate nature- they want to dominate it

slash, burn, build, shoot and hunt.

Nature hates them back.

[Wordie]

13. Link to Assoc. of State Floodplain Managers site...might help.

This was mentioned in a different thread, about a letter to Hastert about potential FEMA problems before Katrina.

I haven't really explored the site fully, but it looks like it might have some relevant information.

Here it is: http://www.floods.org/home/default.asp

[OneTwentyoNine]

14. Boortz shilling the same shit to his brain dead sheep today....

Sierra club did it,Sierra club did it. They held up levee work that caused the failure.

Oh opps...he forgot to mention that the LAKE levee let go,not the River levee,that was the one the SC had a lawsuit over.

[OneTwentyoNine]

15. Funny,I thought this WASN'T the time to point fingers and play the BGame..

Well,now they Bush and his Nazi's have found a scapegoat NOW is the time to point fingers....

[Raiden]

17. Laughable at best

This is Rethug "Personal Responsibility" at play. When a Republi-con is in hot water, pass the buck.

What exactly were environmentalists to do? It was the federal government's job to allocate the money to fund the levee's, but all that money went to local pork projects and an inept Dept. of Homeland Security. LA and NO requested the funds for years, but since the BFEE came to power they haven't got the resources they need. And now the federal government has a spotlight cast on it's misdeeds. Katrina's impact wasn't the fault of environmentalists, it was the fault of a negligent federal government.