Corps wants to close Mr. Go channel to New Orleans
NY Times:
A shipping channel blamed for widespread flooding during Hurricane Katrina and for extensive wetlands destruction should be closed, the Army Corps of Engineers said Friday in a report to Congress.One of the theories about the flooding in New Orleans is that the channel gives a straight shot from the Gulf of Mexico up to the city. It apparently had not been that productive as a commercial outlet to the Gulf.
A preliminary analysis showed it was not cost-effective to keep the channel, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, open “to both shallow and deep-draft navigation,” the report said, recommending it be closed by “an armored earthen dam.”
The M.R.G.O., known locally as Mister Go, was dug in the 1960s as a shortcut to New Orleans and as a way to kick-start development. Since its construction, the channel has destroyed hundreds of square miles of wetlands and killed stands of cypress forests.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/16/america/NA_GEN_US_Katrina_Channel.php
ReplyDeleteIt seems they have not said WHEN it will be closed, so again things stand as they have from the beginning. All talk and no action. There is no one in southern Louisiana that doesn't believe that the MRGO wasn't a major component in the flooding of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. (Many of these people make their living on the water and understand it like the back of their hand.) But again they feds are going to say it is the state's responsibility and the state is going to say it is they fed's responsibility and NOTHING will be done. The governmental abandonment of these citizens is disgraceful.