Posted 9/04/2005 03:01:00 PM by Douglas

This morning on Meet the Press, Mike Tidwell discussed the situation in New Orleans, and answered a lot of questions that have been on everyone's mind. Why is it that New Orleans is below sea level?

MR. MIKE TIDWELL: Well, the question and the answer is: Why in the world is New Orleans below sea level to begin with? I think the media has sort of accepted it uncritically that this city is below sea level which is why we have this problem. Miami is not below sea level. New York's not below sea level. It's below sea level because of the levees. The levees stop the river from flooding and the river's what built the whole coast of Louisiana through 7,000 years of alluvial soil deposits. And if you stop that flooding, the other second natural phenomena in any delta region in the world is subsidence. That alluvial soil is fine, it compacts, it shrinks. That's why New Orleans is below sea level. That's why the whole coast of Louisiana is--the whole land platform is sinking. An area of land the size of Manhattan turns to water in south Louisiana every year even without hurricanes.

You can't just fix the levees in New Orleans. We now have to have a massive coastal restoration project where we get the water out of the Mississippi River in a controlled fashion toward the Barrier islands, restore the wetlands. If you don't commit to this plan which is this $14 billion, costs of the Big Dig in Boston, or two weeks of spending Iraq, you shouldn't fix a single window in New Orleans. You shouldn't pick up a single piece of debris because to do one without the other is to set the table for another nightmare.

No one really wants to hear more doom and gloom right now, but he's absolutely right. There's no sense "fixing" New Orleans, whatever that means, unless a massive project is undertaken to continue the Mississippi on its present course. The attempt to keep the river on its present course was most recently determined after the flood of 1927, and if we've learned nothing from that experience (and we haven't) it's that these tragedies occur because of federal funding, not from their shortage. Billions have already been spent to counter the primal forces of nature, and the results are now painfully obvious. Nature reminds us that she gets to bat last.

But even if the levees are repaired, the water pumped out, and business as usual resumes in New Orleans, who in the hell would want to go back? Why would any business or individual want to invest any money or time into a location that's only one big storm away from being flushed into the sea again?