Subscribe to RSSJindal to the Corps: “Stop dithering and start shoveling!”
The governor shows the corps how to move dirt
Editor’s note: A philosophical essay originally planned for publication on December 12 was postponed in favor of this important news.
On December 10 the second shoe dropped on a controversial coastal project. At 7:12 that evening LaCoastPost received a press release from the Governor’s Office of Coastal Activities (GOCA) calling for the US Army Corps of Engineers to agree to join the state in constructing a major link in what many fear will culminate in a continuous chain of hurricane levees spanning the coast from Texas to Mississippi.
This levee system sounds great at first blush. From a technical standpoint, however, experts warn that it would not be sustainable, it would give false security to “protected” residents and it would break the bank.
During a press conference held at the State Capitol that afternoon Governor Jindal and his coastal executive assistant Garret Graves shared copies of a letter to Lieutenant General Robert van Antwerp, Chief Engineer for the US Army Corps of Engineers. The letter demands that the corps quit stalling, pick up a shovel and join the state in constructing the very pricey seventy mile, cross-basin levee system called Morganza to the Gulf (MTTG).
This announcement was hardly a surprise. Governor Jindal dropped the first shoe on January 13, 2009 when he declared that the state was breaking ground on MTTG without waiting for the corps to complete what some described as an interminable and unnecessarily detailed study of the total costs and benefits of the project.
Back in January it seemed that the state was taking advantage of the corps’ horrendous post-Katrina public image to pressure the agency into premature support for the project. The state and Terrebonne Parish appeared to be co-conspirators in a scheme to pile a token amount of dirt along remote parts of the levee system – before a predictable taxpayer “sticker shock” and buyer’s remorse set in when the total cost of the project is finally released. The December 10 announcement does nothing to change my mind on either count.
MTTG has been on the books since at least 1991 when I first joined the GOCA under Buddy Roemer. Back then a map on my office wall on the fifth floor of the State Capitol showed a projected MTTG alignment suspiciously similar to the accompanying diagram, despite what has been learned during the interim.
Graphic accompanying January 14 story by Mark Schleifstein
This press release left me feeling simultaneously sad and relieved.
It made me sad because I think that the governor has bowed to local political pressure to sign on to a flawed project. I don’t believe that all practical alternative options have been seriously considered for protecting lives and property in Terrebonne Parish – without reducing natural flood protection provided by the coastal ecosystem.
I was relieved because I no longer direct the GOCA and my name is not tied to Governor Jindal’s coastal policy decisions. I don’t doubt that Garret Graves fully supports MTTG as currently conceived. If he shared my concerns, however, from what I hear about the style of this administration I suspect that he would be forced to either salute or resign. That’s the price of earning the big bucks.
This Sophie’s Choice moment gives me chills reminiscent of the time many years ago when I was called up by my draft board in Maryland. I was directed to report for a pre-draft physical exam that, had I passed, would have sent me to LBJ’s “police action” in Viet Nam, an enterprise that I opposed with a fervor similar to my reaction to our costly little adventure in Iraq.
Although the coastal environmental community has long been critical of the version of MTTG that appears to be inevitable, no organized voice of opposition has arisen. I sense a certain resignation on the part of the advocates of sustainable coastal restoration that the fix is in. There is widespread belief among MTTG critics that no plausible alternative would change the prevailing mindset on levee alignment and size.
In other words, so the thinking goes, why risk wasting precious political capital on an inevitable MTTG when so many other struggles lie ahead?
As for the miles of levee that will enclose coastal wetlands under the current MTTG alignment, the state is insisting on the construction of a massive 28 foot tall earthen structure. This would require an uncertain number of Superdome Equivalents (SDEs) of high quality clay.
Despite its imposing size, according to corps projections this levee system would only confer protection from modest 100 year storms (1% annual risk) for many residents of Terrebonne, at a cost of from $8 to $11 billion. Most ironically, this project, with a fifty year lifetime, would take thirty years to complete!
Many things will change during the thirty-year construction time of MTTG. I wouldn’t wager serious money that Houma will not be the victim of a serious hurricane, especially with sea level rising by perhaps a foot and the coast south of town subsiding relentlessly.
The corps has suggested a considerably cheaper alternative, a 15 foot tall levee system projected to confer protection from 25 year storms (4% annual risk). Sections of this alternative could perhaps use a forested ridge design, such as described in a recent post.
Despite all the above, I’m not against MTTG in concept; I just think there are better ways to achieve the goals.
The “centerpiece” feature of MTTG is a lock on the Houma Navigation Canal and I agree with Jindal and Graves that this structure needs to be constructed, no matter how the rest of the project plays out. The lock system will theoretically accomplish three complementary objectives: (1) eliminating the canal as a conduit for storm surge, a la MRGO; (2) reducing the input of salty Gulf waters into a now dead but once healthy coastal forest; and (3) increasing the eastward flow of Atchafalaya River water into the dying Terrebonne marshes via the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
Len Bahr (len.bahr@gmail.com)
4 Comments
2009-12-13
11:58:57
1. Buck up, Buck - there's always a few typos. It's not like these comments are law review articles.
2. Paraphrasing JFK's favorite Ovid quote: "It is annoying to be sustainable to no purpose." The only legit reason to "save" the coast is to protect the people and property who are far enough north and on enough of an upthrown block to be "worth" protecting. Greens, hiss and boo all you like, but cost-benefit ratio is the only valid criteria for picking WHERE to draw the "save" line. We only have so much Miss R sediment and so much Miss R water and so much $$$ so we MUST choose. As Len B. himself wrote, an "unprescription" is urgently needed. (Besides, that's also what the NAS suggested; "draw a map." FWIW, I dropped out of the Regional Stakeholder Workshop process once Denise Reed ruled that even attempting to make a map was out of bounds.)
3. The current M to the G is clearly too far south to be a good use of resources, both mud and money. Prof. Buck's suggested alignment makes far more sense than continuing with the current alignment.
4. On a techie note, the Corps pages I've seen have the borrow sources typically immediately in front of, south of, the proposed levees. Let's be generous and assume the submerged material from those locations is better suited to levees than we experienced along the Chalmette Loop/MRGO Reach 2. If that's the pit, then where can the defense in depth/Multiple Lines of Defense/forested ridges go?
5. On a legal note, Lake P is already a "bay," being a continuously open arm of the sea.
2009-12-13
10:15:15
Editor
I do not understand the reasons to direct the proposed controversial levee twenty miles south and then twenty miles back to the north (total 40 miles) to protect such small linear towns as Dulac, Chauvin, Montegut, Port Barre and places Isle la Jean Charles? It seems that it would make sense, if you are going to build an unsustainable earthen levee, to go due east from Houma and from Houma to Thibodeaux and then west if needed? Why build another bowl below sea level ?
I was in Metairie yesterday during the afternoon downpour that dropped 6" within an hour or so. A some what typical summer afternoon shower but most unusual in December. As I fought my way through flooded streets to get to the causeway and then high ground in Mandeville, it gave me pause to wonder why people live this way in the Bayou state? They certainly would never do it elsewhere. While driving the streets at 5mph so as to not flood peoples house one must ask, why to they build slab foundations in Metry? Houses are only about 6" above street level. Passing cars can literally flood your home. Do these homeowners realize that pumps are required to get the water over the levee and into lake Pontchatrain at a higher elevation? Some houses had water up to their slab foundation as a result of this typical subtropical rain event.
Moving slowly along W. Esplanade Avenue I noticed that the six inches of flooded water in the street was merely 6" about HWL in the Esplanade Canal. There is a bigger problem in SE Louisiana than coastal restoration, hurricane protection, levees and pumps! Why do people want to live under such dangerous conditions that their house may flood during an afternoon thunderstorm. Why do Orleans, and JP public building codes allow slab foundation? There is one reason.
I think it is because these people do not understand that they live on a sunken coast line in many instances below sea level. Is this a symptom of ignorance or of people not capable of seeing what is around them? A bill should be offered to the state Legislature immediately to rename Lake Pontchartrain, "Bay" Pontchartrain which is really an estuary of the sea. Maybe this will help people understand. When you live on the coast, you must live by the rules of the coast, and 28' earthen levees is not living by the rules of the coast. The Corps should know that too.
2009-12-13
09:24:44
Dear Federal Coastal Ecosystem Task Force
You can take sustainability and put it up your bottom.
yours very truly,
Bobby Jindal
p.s. please send money!
2009-12-13
06:42:00
This comment from Willie Fontenot, long time environmental advocate now retired from the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, was sent via email. Willie asked me to post it for him.
Dear Len,
Thank you for this latest post. You are right on point.
Most of Terrebonne parish today is a relatively new area of land that was created by sediment being deposited by Bayou Teche when it was the major distributory river before the present Lower Mississippi River of today in St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes. What folks need to look at is the area behind the Chandeleur Islands which was, a couple of thousand years ago, a wetland area that looked a lot like Terrebonne Parish today.
Unless major water and sediment from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers are allowed to flow across Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes then these wetland areas and ridges will settle and erode away just like all of the former wetlands behind what used to be the Chandeleur Islands.
Unless some of the Mississippi river water and sediment is allowed to flow into the Lake Borgne area then the settling and erosion of the land and wetlands in parishes of Plaquemine, St. Bernard, Orleans and St. Tammany and parts of the state of Mississippi will erode, settle and become more damaged by future hurricanes and wave actions in the next couple of hundred years.
Anticipated sea level rises will add dramatically to these adverse coastal impacts.
Construction of a major levee system, including the proposed Morganza to the Gulf system will not deal with but add to the increased settling and erosion of Terrebonne Parish and other coastal parishes.
I know you are very aware of all of these things. I just felt inspired to scribble them down.
Sincerely yours,
Willie