Compassionate Liberalism Part III:
Environmentalists Partly Responsible for Flood
September 8, 2005
===========================
by Michael P. Tremoglie
===========================
Instead of desperately searching for ways to help – some liberals and
Democrats - have been desperately searching for reasons to blame
President Bush for the flood of New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina.
Their blatant attempt at political exploitation has been reprehensible
to say the least.
While doing so they have shot themselves in the foot. Researching the
bogus claims of the liberal hate mongers I learned that liberal
environmentalists may bear some responsibility for the flood of New
Orleans.
The first of three articles I wrote concerning the political
exploitation of the Hurricane Katrina disaster addressed the bogus
claims by Democrats and liberals that global warming was to blame - ergo
Bush’s environmental policies were ultimately the cause of New Orleans
flooding.
This lie was revealed when hurricane experts said there was no
correlation between Hurricane Katrina and global warming.
The second article addressed the equally bogus claim that the Iraq war
and Bush tax cuts caused a lack of funding of levee projects in New
Orleans and led to the New Orleans flood.
Once again, experts discredited this fabrication. Officials from the
Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), and academicians said that there was no
correlation between the projects with reduced funding and the flooding.
I concluded there were two reasons for this. One was that the funding
cut was only for preliminary plans – and was the result of a new
budgeting process. Two was any project would take approximately twenty
years to complete.
However, I noticed that there was a proposed flood prevention project,
aborted nearly thirty years ago, which would have alleviated the
flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. This project was to build
floodgates at Chef Menteur and Rigolets passes to block storm surges
from the Gulf causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood New Orleans – which is
what happened during Hurricane Katrina.
Why was this project aborted? Environmentalists sued to have it stopped.
An environmentalist group stated the proposed Rigolets and Chef Menteur
floodgates of the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Prevention Project would
have a negative effect on the environment.
During the course of the trial the defense counsel, US Attorney Gerald
Gallinghouse, felt so strongly that the project should continue that,
according to one source, he said, " …. He would go before the United
States Congress with (Congressman) F. Edward Hebert to pass a
resolution, exempting the Hurricane Barrier Project from the rules and
regulations of the National Environmental Policy Act because, in his
opinion, it is necessary to protect the citizens of New Orleans from a
hurricane."
Despite this, the judge ruled in favor of the environmentalists and the
project was aborted. However, the ACE considered this project so
important they never scrapped the plans for it.
Indeed the September-October 204 edition of Riverside (the magazine of
the New Orleans District Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Office)
referred to this lawsuit and project. Eric Lincoln’s article titled, Old
Plans Revived for Category 5 Hurricane Protection, stated:
“In 1977, plans for hurricane protection structures at the Rigolets and
Chef Menteur Pass were sunk when environmental groups sued the district.
They believed that the environmental impact statement did not adequately
address several potential problems, including impacts on Lake
Pontchartrain’s ecosystem and damage to wetlands. Ultimately, an
agreement between the parties resulted in a consent decree to forego the
structures at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur Pass. ….The new initial
feasibility study will look at protecting the area between the Pearl
River and Mississippi River from a Category 5 storm. …. alternatives
that would be studied in the initial feasibility report are:
Construction of floodgate structures, with environmental modifications,
at Rigolets and Chef Pass …” (emphasis mine)
This time the Army Corps of Engineers would modify the original plans
because of the environmentalists. However, the project was already
delayed more than two decades because of the environmentalist’s lawsuit.
If begun immediately it would take another two decades to complete -- a
forty-year delay.
According to Professor Gregory Stone, the James P. Morgan Distinguished
Professor and Director of the Coastal Studies Institute of Louisiana
State University, these floodgates would have alleviated the flooding of
New Orleans caused by Hurricane Katrina. " The floodgates would have
blocked the flow of water from the Gulf of Mexico, through Lake Borgne,
through the Rigolets (and Chef Mentuer) into Lake Pontchartrain. This
would likely have reduced storm surge coming from the gulf and into the
Lake Pontchartrain, " Professor Stone told me during an interview
September 6.
The New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers and Professor Stone were not the
only people cognizant of the consequences that could and did result
because of the environmental activists. While speaking with Sean Hannity
on his radio show, Labor Day, former Louisiana Congressman Bob
Livingston also referred to environmentalists who prevented hurricane
prevention projects.
Many politicians are asking for hearings. If there are hearings, they
should include the contribution to the flooding made by environmental
groups, which aborted or delayed hurricane prevention projects.
The disaster of Hurricane Katrina has illustrated once again the
ignorance, fanaticism, and incompetence of liberals. This is just more
evidence that most policies proffered by liberals and Democrats –
whether it concerns crime, the Cold War, the Global War on Terror, or
the environment - are deleterious to the nation.
As Ronald Reagan once said: “…. the trouble with our liberal friends is
not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so!
Once again instead of concern for their fellow citizens, liberals are
trying to exploit a tragedy for political purposes. There are some
liberals (and Democrats) who made the rather bizarre claim that funding
the Iraq war – in conjunction with Bush’s tax cuts - caused funding for
flood control projects in New Orleans to be cut thereby causing the
flood.
Yet, ironically, they may have hoisted themselves by their own petard.
While investigating the validity of these claims, evidence has been
found that the actions of environmentalists may have contributed to the
flooding of New Orleans – rather than the war in Iraq and tax policy.
According to this “Iraq war led to New Orleans flooding” theory, there
was a reduction in spending for construction and upgrade of the levees
around New Orleans because of there were no federal funds available as a
result of paying for the Iraq war and Bush’s tax cuts. The proponents of
this theory claim that if the levees were upgraded they would have been
able to withstand Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans would not have been
flooded.
Such Democratic Party luminaries as Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal,
and Chris Kofinis - former Naderfactor.com strategist and Wesley Clark
advocate -propagated this hypothesis.
Liberal media such as the Philadelphia Daily News, Der Speigel, Editors
and Publishers, and David Corn.com also promulgated this theory.
Kofinis, responding to the Daily News article told the AP,‘" As these
facts get out, and the American people learn that decisions were made
not to fund improvements of the levees because of Iraq, they will not be
happy."’ (emphasis mine)
Blumenthal wrote in Der Speigel “ FEMA warned that a hurricane striking
New Orleans was one of the three most likely disasters in the U.S. But
the Bush administration cut New Orleans flood control funding by 44
percent to pay for the Iraq war…. In 2004, the Bush administration cut
funding requested by the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers for holding back the waters of Lake Pontchartrain by more than
80 percent. Additional cuts at the beginning of this year (for a total
reduction in funding of 44.2 percent since 2001) forced the New Orleans
district of the Corps to impose a hiring freeze. The Senate had debated
adding funds for fixing New Orleans´ levees, but it was too late.”[1] (
emphasis mine)
The Daily News stated, “Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars
toward SELA dropped to a trickle. The Corps never tried to hide the fact
that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland
security -- coming at the same time as federal tax cuts -- was the
reason for the strain. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from
2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the
lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars.” (emphasis mine)
None of the NOTP articles mentioned tax cuts. Only one article quoted an
Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) official, Al Naomi, as stating funds for
flood control were going elsewhere – albeit not as saying that the money
was going for homeland security and the war in Iraq. Naomi also did not
mention tax cuts.
Al Naomi is an ACE Project Manager for the New Orleans District. The
Daily News quoted one NOTP article mentioning him, which said, “ The
$750 million Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection
project is another major Corps project, which remains about 20%
incomplete due to lack of funds, said Al Naomi, project manager. That
project consists of building up levees and protection for pumping
stations on the east bank of the Mississippi River in Orleans, St.
Bernard, St. Charles and Jefferson parishes….The Lake Pontchartrain
project is slated to receive $3.9 million in the president´s 2005
budget. Naomi said about $20 million is needed. ‘"The longer we wait
without funding, the more we sink," he said. "I´ve got at least six
levee construction contracts that need to be done to raise the levee
protection back to where it should be (because of settling)’"
This is pretty damning stuff. Yet it never said Iraq War or tax cuts
caused the funding reduction.
However, an August 10, 2004 Philadelphia Inquirer article also quoted
Naomi, “’It´s possible to protect New Orleans from a Category 5
hurricane,’ ‘….It could take 20 years and at least $1 billion to raise
the levees high enough and to build floodgates at the mouth of Lake
Pontchartrain, Naomi said. ‘“[2] (emphasis mine)
It will take twenty years? This obviously changes the context of the
comments by Blumenthal, the Daily News et al. How does the Bush 2006
budget prevent a 2005 flood of New Orleans because a project - that
could not be completed for twenty years and would need $1 billion - was
not given the funds desired?
Another omitted quote from Naomi is from the May 2005 edition of
American Prospect - Clinton cabinet member Robert Reich’s magazine. An
article titled What would happen if a Category 5 hurricane were to hit
New Orleans? quoted Naomi, “New Orleans would be the "only city in the
country or even the world" with Category 5 hurricane protections, Corps´
senior project manager Al Naomi told me last November. But these ideas
are in little more than a brainstorming stage at this point; whether the
bureaucratic Corps can lurch into action quickly enough to protect a
city faced with ever increasing vulnerabilities remains a serious
question. "[3] (emphasis mine)
Again, the idea is that nothing done by the ACE now would help.
According to Naomi, the projects touted by Blumenthal and the others as
those that would have prevented New Orleans from being flooded were
still in their embryonic stage. Anything that needed to be done to
protect New Orleans in the present should have been started ten or
twenty years ago. This is an important fact, as we shall see.
Liberals and Democrats were so anxious to politicize the tragedy of the
flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina they forgot to mention this report
which appeared in July 2004 Civil Engineering magazine: “The budget for
fiscal year 2005 proposed by President Bush in February recognized the
gravity and exigency of the situation in coastal Louisiana.”[4]
Finally, liberals and Democrats have been discredited by the very person
they chose to cite as the authoritative source for their proposition
that President Bush’s 2005 proposed budget reduction for funds for New
Orleans’ flood control projects caused the disastrous flooding of New
Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
According to the 9-2-05 Miami Herald, “Acknowledging delays in
construction, Corps officials in Louisiana said that those projects
weren´t where the failures occurred. ´´’They did not contribute to the
flooding of the city,´´ said Al Naomi, a senior project manager.’”
(emphasis mine) [5]
The facts are these. Despite what Democratic Party operatives, despite
what liberal reporters are saying, there is no evidence Bush’s budget
prevented the building of flood prevention projects that would have
spared New Orleans flooding. There is also no evidence that the war in
Iraq or tax cuts prevented the funding. Any assertion of this is mere
supposition – and unsubstantiated supposition at that!
Indeed, quite the opposite is true. There were two very salient facts
about the levee projects that can be learned from the NOTP articles the
Daily News used.
One is that a new bidding process – not the war in Iraq - caused the
reduction. The 2-8-05 New Orleans Times-Picayune article states:
“(Windell Curole, executive director of the South Lafourche Levee
District) was critical of a new method used by corps officials to rank
projects by comparing the remaining benefits to be gained from
completing a project to the cost of completion. Some corps staffers also
aren´t happy with the new method....” (emphasis mine)
Two is the ultimate irony. This was gleaned from the Daily News’
research - although not mentioned by it - environmentalists may have
prevented building floodgates that would have prevented the flooding
from Hurricane Katrina.
The 5-28-05 New Orleans Times-Picayune states, “Under the original plan,
floodgate-type structures would have been built at the Rigolets and Chef
Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving from the Gulf into Lake
Pontchartrain. Those plans were abandoned after environmental advocates
successfully sued to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands
and the lake´s ecosystem, Naomi said. Now the corps wants to take
another look using more environmentally sensitive construction than was
previously available.” (emphasis mine)[i]
While liberals are trying to blame Bush, a liberal media report
indicates that environmentalists may be responsible!
Another bit of irony. There is at least one expert who claims the New
Orleans levees would not make a difference – in fact, they contributed
to the problem. Deputy Director of the LSU Hurricane Center and Director
of the Center for the Study Public Health Impacts by Hurricanes Ivor van
Heerden said, “The levees ‘“have literally starved our wetlands to
death”’ by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of
Mexico.”
It will be sometime before inquiries and research are completed to
determine what, if anything, could have been done to prevent the tragic
flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. If budget cuts,
environmental lawsuits, bureaucratic malaise or anything else were
responsible, we need to learn this.
However, the first priority is to rescue and provide for the survivors
and to rebuild.
This, unfortunately, does not seem to be a priority with some liberals
and Democrats. Anxious to regain the political power they possessed
since the FDR administration, they are attempting to politically exploit
the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina.
They have shown who they really are. They have shown they placed their
desire for power before their desire to help people. They have placed
politics before principle.
These are the people who want to control the government. Remember this
when they ask for your vote next election day.
Michael Tremoglie
=======================================
[1] Ret fm w/s
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,372455,00.html
9-1-05
[2] ret fm w/s
http://hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/phillyinquirer100804.htm 9-1-05
[3] ret fm w/s http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=10180 9-1-05
[4] ret fm w/s http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline04/0704feat
..html 9-1-05
[5] ret fm w/s http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12539792.htm 9-2-05
--
Lumber Cartel (tinlc) #2063. Spam this account at your own risk.
This sig censored by the Office of Home and Land Insecurity....
.
|
|
| User: "=?iso-8859-1?B?07/SIEh1bnRlciB0aGUgZ3J1bnRlciDTv9I=?=" |
|
| Title: Re: My last post on Katrina... |
13 Sep 2005 05:33:49 PM |
|
|
They should all resign or be impeached.
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
