New Orleans land melting into the Gulf "really, really fast"

[donsu]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-mcquaid/new-orleans-giant-alka-s_b_42720.html


New Orleans, Giant Alka Seltzer Tablet


In a three-day Times-Picayune series that started Sunday, my former colleagues Bob Marshall and Mark Schleifstein lay out one of the fundamental challenges facing New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina. We already knew that the fragile, damaged Louisiana coastline was disappearing. But we didn't know how fast. And the answer is: really, really fast.

Land is dissolving into the Gulf of Mexico so quickly that unless major restoration projects get underway more or less now, the sinking coast may disappear altogether. That would be a multi-headed catastrophe - cultural, economic, ecological. The bayou country is a unique American resource. And losing it would also make it much harder to protect the city from hurricanes, large and small. Once marshes disappear and you get the Gulf lapping at your levees, you've already lost the battle.

Sadly and unsurprisingly, the major obstacles are not scientific or logistical, but entirely political and bureaucratic. Coastal restoration was held up for years by a lack of attention from Washington, conflicting agendas, and special interests from national property-rights advocates to oystermen. Post-Katrina, things have changed a bit - more money is coming online, for one. But just approving the necessary programs can take years.

Louisiana's predicament is an alarming lesson in today's head-in-the-sand approach not just to the marshes, but on the whole range of global issues - climate change, energy and water consumption, natural disasters: The world is changing fast, while government institutions resist, dither and plod. It will take national leadership to get out ahead of these problems. Presidential candidates, take
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don't anyone hold their breaths thinking national leadership will get out ahead of the problems.

even the dems work at the speed of a snail

kiss N.O. and the upper Gulf coastline goodbye. say hello to a new set of problems for the people living there.

when the next hurricane hits there . . . it will be hell all over again.

[Horse with no Name]

1. Not surprising at all.

There needs to be really good reasons not to rebuild the coast. Malfeasance and incompetency aren't good reasons.

[Atman]

2. There is nothing to "fix." This is supposed to happen.

It's called "nature." You can't build a city below sea level, in a marsh, and hold off nature by building a cement wall. The Army Corp of Engineers started this cluster fuck in a big way by straightening out the Mississippi River, which changed the silt deposits that NATURE intended. Again, it is getting "fixed" by not doing anything. It is terribly sad for the former residents...but that ship has sailed, thanks to W.

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[The2ndWheel]

3. We can't get ahead of problems

There will always be another problem ahead of the one you're currently trying to solve. The former will be the result of the latter.

The reason the coast is going away is because we tried to fix the problem of nature for commericial purposes. The more we try and fix things now, the next time something goes wrong it will be even worse.