After a $14-Billion Upgrade, New Orleans' Levees Are Sinking (scientificamerican.com) 256
An anonymous reader shares a report: The $14 billion network of levees and floodwalls that was built to protect greater New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was a seemingly invincible bulwark against flooding. But now, 11 months after the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of the largest public works projects in world history, the agency says the system will stop providing adequate protection in as little as four years because of rising sea levels and shrinking levees. The growing vulnerability of the New Orleans area is forcing the Army Corps to begin assessing repair work, including raising hundreds of miles of levees and floodwalls that form a meandering earth and concrete fortress around the city and its adjacent suburbs.
"These systems that maybe were protecting us before are no longer going to be able to protect us without adjustments," said Emily Vuxton, policy director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, an environmental group. She said repair costs could be "hundreds of millions" of dollars, with 75% paid by federal taxpayers. "I think this work is necessary. We have to protect the population of New Orleans," Vuxton said. The protection system was built over a decade and finished last May when the Army Corps completed a final component that involves pumps.
"These systems that maybe were protecting us before are no longer going to be able to protect us without adjustments," said Emily Vuxton, policy director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana, an environmental group. She said repair costs could be "hundreds of millions" of dollars, with 75% paid by federal taxpayers. "I think this work is necessary. We have to protect the population of New Orleans," Vuxton said. The protection system was built over a decade and finished last May when the Army Corps completed a final component that involves pumps.
Move (Score:2, Insightful)
See subject
Re:Move (Score:5, Insightful)
My city is built around a river (as many are) and of course with that usually comes some areas of floodplains. Time and time again they got flooded out. The last round they bought out and tore down about 3/4 of the houses, and raised the rest on cinder blocks, 18-20ft high, courtesy of the army corps of engineers.
Then we got a "500 year flood", 25 feet of water in some areas. OK time to move. "But we want to stay!" Nope, you're moving this time, this is the last time we're paying for you to keep being stupid. Your property is now zoned uninhabitable.
Looking at New Orleans, they're living in a bowl below sea level, near the ocean, in an area prone to hurricanes. They don't just get swells and inundation, they get outrageous sudden rainfall that often doesn't go away until the "spontaneous lakes" evaporates.
As a federal taxpayer, I don't like the idea of funding the stupidity of people that insist on continuing to live in a place like that.
Re: Move (Score:3)
Half of New Orleans is at or above sea level (Score:4, Insightful)
"Contrary to popular perceptions, half of New Orleans is at or above sea level."
http://www.richcampanella.com/... [richcampanella.com]
"Compared to other areas of the city, the Quarter experienced relatively light flood damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The district was protected by its distance from breached levees and the strength and height of the nearest river levees and flood walls.[5]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
New Orleans is perhaps the most important city in the US. I know, that's a shocker. But when you view it in the context of geo-politics, it explains much of some weird segments in American history.
Why did Henry Bathurst order the invasion of New Orleans in the war of 1812 when he knew the King and America had agreed to a treaty, but it had not been legally ratified? Why the rush?
Why did America make such a big deal over "allowing" emigration to Texas, legally a Mexican province, which led eventually to t
Re:Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Who will pay for the move?
Home ownership is often the biggest investment for the average citizen. Force relocation without buying the property at its current worth finding an acceptable location to move them too, make sure they are jobs available for their current skills sets, and schools and other infrastructures ready, is just government cruelty.
While New Orleans is at risk of flooding, and a lot of money is needed to make sure this doesn't happen, most other areas of the US needs money and support from the government to keep homes and infrastructure safe. Snow Removal, Fire, Tornadoes... Heck I live in a rather safe area in Upstate NY, a couple years ago, we needed federal aid, just from a large storm system (Not a hurricane or even a super storm, just a bad thunder storm) that washed out major roads, and flooded a town who is well above sea level.
I would much rather see 14 billion going to fixing New Orleans Levees, then going to other government project, just because there is solid improvement that we can see and justify. vs going to pie in the sky projects with no proof of effectiveness.
Re: (Score:2)
Who will pay for the move?......I would much rather see 14 billion going to fixing New Orleans Levees....
Seems like you answered your own question.
Why spend that money repeatedly to continue to fight against the sea when you can spend it once and just move the people out of the way?
Re: (Score:3)
Errr...not to quibble, but spending 14 billion on fixing New Orleans Levees IS a government project....unless you are planning to get you and your neighbors to ante up...government money grows on trees....so does yours.
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I would much rather see 14 billion going to fixing New Orleans Levees, then going to other government project, just because there is solid improvement that we can see and justify. vs going to pie in the sky projects with no proof of effectiveness.
Sure. I do not have a problem with spending 14 billion to actually fix the levees. But this has the whiff of a project that is going cost another several billion every decade or two, forever. We do have to be realistic about whether a proposed solution is really a solution or an expensive bandaid that we will have to pay for over and over again.
New Orleans is a place of cultural importance but modest economic importance in the 21st century. At some point, we should just dangle 20 or 30 billion dollars i
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Looking at the demographics, New Orleans is a small city of ~400k. Offering a check for $20k to every resident and $100k to every property owner to abandon their moral and legal claims may turn out to be much cheaper over the long haul than maintaining these levees. And it is not all of New Orleans that actually needs to be abandoned, so we can leave people who want to stay to their fate and ability to find an insurance company that will work with them based on the merits of their home/business location r
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Because spending 14 billion dollars for the sea levels rising 0.01mm is a better option, dumbass?
"But my family has been here for generations!"
So what? The current and future generations of dumbasses can't live there anymore.
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I have mandated flood insurance. In Arizona. Because my home is 6 inches too low to avoid a one-in-50-years-chance of a drainage overflow event, and could get wet.
It costs about 30% as much as my homeowners insurance, which includes costs for liability, fire damage, and a variety of other possible threats. And we know I'm paying flood insurance premiums to spread the cost, since that is how insurance works, especially costs of catastrophic events such as the Hurricane Sandy Staten Island floods, other coast
Re: msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)
New Orleans is one of THE MAJOR port cities in the US.
Losing NOLA would hit the entire US economy in a bad way.
Not to mention, the incredible amount of oil and energy that comes in through here, and is processed in the many refineries not far away...not only those industries but the manpower that supports them.
Do we abandon parts of California because it is on top of a major fault zone? Because of the susceptibility to wild fires and major mud slides?
Do we abandon the midwest due to floods there?
What about NYC and New Jersey...the somewhat 'mild' Super Storm Sandy was just a taste of what can and likely in the future someday will come, one major hurricane hits the right place and NYC is under water...do we just move from there too? Yes, they have a NOLA type disaster scenario too. I believe it was in the 1800's or so, one whole popular island off the coast of NY vanished in a hurricane.
We are the UNITED States of America...there are natural dangers in pretty much every part of the US. All states and cities are considered equal in this union and therefore we support each other.
But even if you don't support that last part....just the financial and energy impact (not to mention the severe loss of seafood for much of the US) will hit just about everyone if it were to disappear and go away.
Re:msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)
Methinks it would be better in the long run to just let it go under.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:2)
Are you mentally retarded or just a cunt? (Score:3)
From TFA:
But now, 11 months after the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of the largest public works projects in world history, the agency says the system will stop providing adequate protection in as little as four years because of rising sea levels and shrinking levees.
It is unclear how much earth will need to be added to the levees, which stand as high as 35 feet.
Admit it... It's both, right?
You keep dividing 35 feet with 4 years and it keeps coming out 0.01mm?
Which isn't true even on a daily basis - which comes out to about 7.3mm. Only about 730 times more than what you keep getting.
So you dust off one of your burner accounts and practice the only way you know for dealing with your mental inadequacy - by being a cunt.
Sad.
Re: (Score:2)
Rising sea levels are assumed to be real. Planning for this seems beyond the ken of the Government agencies involved, despite these agencies reporting on the rising sea levels. Fail.
Re:msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)
Wong blame. Given their druthers, the Government agencies' rank and file know damn well the problem of rising sea levels. However, when one political party looks at the data and claims they aren't rising, or are rising but it isn't the humans' fault so nothing should be done, and when that political party seeds the top echelon at those agencies with hacks whose only interest it to glom onto a government paycheck and then a government retirement plan, then the agencies are hamstrung.
And most people wouldn't like the agencies' rank and files' solutions: Move, the oceans are really, really big....so big you wouldn't believe it...we cannot stop it so stop asking us for miracles...go pray for those, but Move!!! And move to a green economy soon, or watch everything you ever liked about nature (clean air, clean water, etc) get destroyed.
Gerry
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Since I'm essentially calling out the government for actually planning for the predicted seal level rise, you can be forgiven for thinking that I might be an engineer. But I am not.
More importantly, though, one need not be an engineer to recognize the fails.
Re: msmash alarmist clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)
It was a rush job with no real plan done in panicked reaction. The fact that they got it done at all and it's been effective so long (and looks to be for several more years) and came in at such a low cost (yes, low, go ask for bids to get this done if you don't think $14B is low) is an amazing testament to the ACoE.
Let it sink... (Score:5, Interesting)
...call it Old Orleans, and move all of the jazz talent to Mobile, AL. Mobile has nice ports, a downtown area that's been developed for the last 15 years to look like New Orleans anyway. Also, maybe Emanuel's Hot Tamales will reopen!
Re:Let it sink... (Score:5, Informative)
Old Orleans is in France.
Re: (Score:2)
Then call it Great Old One Orleans instead?
Anyway, irrespective of the actual article, I can take this opportunity to say that this appears to be one levee to which I will not drive my Chevy (since it isn't dry).
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But then they'd be living in Alabama.
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Banjo-Jazz!
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At least you can get away with murder there easier due to forensics being so much more difficult. You know, no dental records, and all the DNA is the same.
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...call it Old Orleans, and move all of the jazz talent to Mobile, AL. Mobile has nice ports, a downtown area that's been developed for the last 15 years to look like New Orleans anyway. Also, maybe Emanuel's Hot Tamales will reopen!
While I don't disagree, part of me just has to say that "Holland manages it somehow".
It's enough to at least make me ask the questions.
Re:Let it sink... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. The "Holland manages it somehow" (By the way it's called The Netherlands, Holland is more like Dakota, it has a North and a South, and is a part of the country) is a bit misleading. The Delta works was a 16billion Euro investment in flood control. The dykes are an ongoing cost (in the Rijnmond area it's been 300million euro for the most recent maintenance activities). And that's to say nothing of how much tax we pay in the Netherlands (would blow an American's mind to pay 52% income tax)
Re: (Score:3)
Mobile, AL isn't on the mouth of the Mississippi river....that alone makes NOLA important economically to the entire US.
I believe it is the 2nd or likely 3rd largest port city in the US. Not only that, much of the oil energy of the US is not only manned by folks around here, bu
This isn't news (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole area is sinking. No man-made structure is going to support a bay-sized sinkhole. This was widely known after Katrina hit and they tried to engineer a solution. No solution will keep the city from dipping below the water line over time.
Re:This isn't news (Score:4, Insightful)
The whole area is sinking. No man-made structure is going to support a bay-sized sinkhole. This was widely known after Katrina hit and they tried to engineer a solution. No solution will keep the city from dipping below the water line over time.
Exactly this. The silt upon which the Big Easy is built is slowly subsiding into the Gulf of Mexico over time. We can spend billions of dollars if we like, but eventually it's going to be under water or buried in the dirt we have to truck in.
IMHO we should forego the inevitable and rebuild onto higher ground upstream. Call it New-New Orleans and start offering incentives for residents and businesses to move to higher ground instead of spending the money on levies and pumps in a battle we will eventually lose.
However, to be fair, I don't live there and haven't visited in 25 years, so what do I know?
High Orleans (Score:2)
Since they are going to have the 1st annual cannabis festival in NOLA tomorrow, perhaps a better name would be "High Orleans" if it they rebuild on higher ground.
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome aboard Captain Obvious. Since New Orleans' altitude ranges from 6.5 to 20 ft MSL, it is, ipso facto, below the waterline.
Re: (Score:2)
The 2019 Budget deficit is estimated at $1.109T. This averages to $3.098B/day. So, this would be the equivalent of 4.6 days of deficit spending.or 1.28% of the deficit.
Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's build a city on sinking land. Things get destroyed. The land continues to sink. Then build levees to protect it. The land continues to sink. Then hurricane and levees fail. The land continues to sink. Then rebuild and upgrade levees costing everyone billions of dollars. The land continues to sink. Then the levees sink, too.
There is a trend here. One that has been happening for thousands of years. One that can't be stopped. Sometimes you just have to give up and realize that some battles can't be won. MOVE!
Re:Move (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's build a city on sinking land. Things get destroyed. The land continues to sink.
When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And thatâ(TM)s what youâ(TM)re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England.
I've said before and I've said again, when someone's home gets wiped out by a predictable disaster, they should get assistance, but it should be contingent upon their moving somewhere else. Spending money to rebuild New Orleans is one of the classic all-time blunders, right up there with a land war in Asia.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a good thing you already posted that, because I was about to.
It's weird when science-fiction can accurately predict the future, but it's just sad when even comedy can do the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Except Monty Python and the Holy Grail is "historical" comedy, not science fiction; unless you consider the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch to be a scifi device.
Ni!!!
Re: (Score:2)
I would classify it as fantasy as opposed to SF, as there is no assertion that the HHG is anything but a spiritual device. However, employing sheep bladders to predict earthquakes is a whole other matter.
Re: (Score:2)
As long as the sheep those bladders are from aren't rams. That would be a waste of perfectly good rams' bladders needed in candy making.
Re:Move (Score:4, Funny)
Huge...tracts of land...
Re: (Score:2)
when someone's home gets wiped out by a predictable disaster, they should get assistance, but it should be contingent upon their moving somewhere else
Ooooo... "predictable" sounds like a fun weasel word we can use to get whatever result we want! Predictable by whom? Since just about anything you care to think about has a non-zero probability of happening, what's the threshold and who decides?
Is flooding from 50+ inches of rain from a stalled hurricane "predictable"? I guess half of southeast Texas should have moved... somewhere. How about just hurricanes in general -- those are predictable, right? Anyone that gets hurricane damage, no matter how far
Re:Move (Score:4, Interesting)
That's exactly the word the con artist used when he begged to build a sea wall [politico.com] to protect his failing golf course in Ireland after repeatedly saying climate change is a hoax:
In 2013, he tweeted, "We should be focused on clean and beautiful air-not expensive and business closing GLOBAL WARMING-a total hoax!" In January 2014, he tweeted, "This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice."
So, yeah. Using "predicted" is a great way to get whatever result you want even if it completely contradicts what you previously said.
Re: (Score:3)
Uh...look at the data on sea level rise. Notice a pattern? Look at the data on a fall in glacier ice pack. Notice a pattern? Notice the frequency of flooding in Miami during high tide over the last 50 years. Notice a pattern?
Well, I guess YOU wouldn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, the first response tried to hijack this thread into a referendum on Trump, and now you're trying to turn it into some sort of statement on global warming. Can't wait to see the next tangential smear!
Re: Move (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The US should start by not subsidizing Federal flood insurance.
Re: (Score:3)
Stop that! Stop that! You're not going into a song while I'm here. Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes, you're getting married to a girl whose father owns the biggest tracts of open land in Britain.
Re: (Score:2)
B-- but I don't want land.
Bah, that's nothing. (Score:2)
And that’s what you’re going to get, the strongest city in all of Louisiana!
Re: (Score:2)
People are just not that smart. People just like to pretend they are smart. Human history teaches only one lesson and that is we suck at learning history and are doomed to repeat it.
People will always put their homes in the sand, in the swamps, under sea level, in the middle of tornado alley, smack in the middle of a fire plain, and dead center of a flood plain. Then we erect a bunch of social policies and safety nets to protect these morons from themselves at the expense of everyone else and then we get
Re: (Score:2)
Not entirely true. The Mississippi river delta was not always where New Orleans is today. For example, ca 4600BP the delta was flowing WSW over Salé-Cypremort and the area that became New Orleans was at a much lower elevation. The levee system that prevent floods from depositing new materials has allowed for the area to recently sink over time.
Rising Sea Levels... (Score:3)
Sadly, there are those who are still convinced that the way to deal with climate change (if they even admit it's happening) is to engineer our way out.. build walls, put stuff on stilts etc...
It is amazing to me how utterly "I'd go for a million pounds of cure rather than an ounce of prevention" that some folks have.
Sadly, a lot of it is politically motivated, so folks tend to dig in and treat it as if it's a political matter that is somehow up for debate and not a matter of well established scientific fact.
Re:Rising Sea Levels... (Score:5, Interesting)
This one has nothing to do with climate change. New Orleans has been flooding since it was founded, back in 1717.
The French explorer Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville made a fateful decision in 1717 when he chose the site for New Orleans along a sharp bend in the Mississippi River. Bienville selected the site against the objections of his chief engineer, who realized that the area suffered from periodic floods. New Orleanians have been paying the price of Bienville's insistence ever since, from the first major flood shortly after the town's founding to the merciless juggernaut that was Hurricane Katrina.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/orleans/struggle.html [pbs.org]
Notice the first quote is from 1708, and that guy says putting a settlement there was impossible due to flooding.
It takes a special kind of stupid to build a city on land that averages 6 feet below sea level NEXT TO THE SEA! That'd be fine if we were talking about Oklahoma or Kansas, but at the mouth of one of the biggest rivers of the world, nestled next to a lake?
JPLM (Score:2)
This should be a new term: to "JPLM" meaning to make a mistake that will screw people for generations.
Trump is such a JPLM that it took 100 years until there was another Republican president.
Re: (Score:2)
In case anyone asks, I know the initials were JBLM, but that's how bad Jean-Baptiste's decision was.
Re: (Score:2)
Climate change or not, New Orleans was doomed from the start. The "ounce of prevention" for NO is to recognize that simple fact, give up and move. If anything climate change is only hastening things a tad for NO, but just a tad.
Re: Rising Sea Levels... (Score:2)
There's no need to MOVE, just rebuild on pilings. A flood is still messy & disruptive, but at least THEN it goes from "deadly wholesale disaster" to "big fucking mess to clean up".
It's like concrete vs hurricanes. My roof is a literal cast-in-place reinforced concrete suspended slab, and my walls are concrete block reinforced with rebar & grout. A cat-5 hurricane will still make a horrific mess, but as I put it to my parents, "I'll have a huge mess to clean up... my neighbors with wood roofs will be
Re: (Score:2)
There's no need to MOVE, just rebuild on pilings. A flood is still messy & disruptive, but at least THEN it goes from "deadly wholesale disaster" to "big fucking mess to clean up".
It would be cheaper to just move everyone.
It's like concrete vs hurricanes. My roof is a literal cast-in-place reinforced concrete suspended slab, and my walls are concrete block reinforced with rebar & grout. A cat-5 hurricane will still make a horrific mess, but as I put it to my parents, "I'll have a huge mess to clean up... my neighbors with wood roofs will be *homeless*".
Or for a lot less hassle you could live where I do and not have to worry about hurricanes at all. That said, if everything is destroyed except for the walls and ceiling, you haven't really bought yourself anything. You still will have to replace basically everything. Just because you technically have a roof still standing doesn't mean you really still have a home to live in.
The fundamental problem is that in New Orleans, it's viewed as "ok" to build houses whose ground floor is below the 500-year flood level & rely on levees to keep them from becoming inundated.
Simple fact is that building the city of New Orleans where it is remains a fundamentally s
Re: (Score:2)
It is amazing to me how utterly "I'd go for a million pounds of cure rather than an ounce of prevention" that some folks have.
Sadly, a lot of it is politically motivated, so folks tend to dig in and treat it as if it's a political matter that is somehow up for debate and not a matter of well established scientific fact.
Read up on how Bush I was very close to pursuing a policy to curb emissions multilaterally, just as had been done with fixing the Ozone layer.
30 years ago we had the chance to save the Earth [nytimes.com]
Re: Rising Sea Levels... (Score:2)
You don't need to do either. Just stop federal underwriting of insurance in these sorts of disaster zones. They'll all empty out naturally with little to no loss of life.
Continuing to give money to people to rebuild on a coastal flood plain prone to hurricanes is actually killing people.
Re: (Score:2)
Just stop federal underwriting of insurance in these sorts of disaster zones
It's not underwriting. The only entity that offers flood insurance in the US is the federal government.
They'll all empty out naturally with little to no loss of life.
Since a home is the primary source of wealth for the vast majority of people, having that home suddenly be worthless is going to kill a lot of people.
Re: (Score:3)
Since a home is the primary source of wealth for the vast majority of people, having that home suddenly be worthless is going to kill a lot of people.
The reality is, climate change is going to bankrupt the US.
As the seas rise, and as weather events become more extreme, insurance companies and the govt will be less and less inclined to pay for it.
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Sea level rise isn't the issue. Right now, worst case sealevel rise for the Gulf in the next four years is about ONE INCH (2.5cm, for those not smart enough to handle two different systems).
So, one inch sea level rise plus subsidence is going to cause a problem in as little as four years. HINT: it's the subsidence that's the problem, NOT the sea level rise....
And, subsidence is, and always has been, an issue in the NOLA area. If the Corps of Engineers is surprised by this, then they're completely inco
Re: (Score:2)
Sea levels rising at all is quite different than sea levels rising even more because we do nothing about climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, climate change makes it worse?
The raising race (Score:5, Insightful)
The higher you raise the levy, the heavier the levy becomes, the faster the alluvial sediments that make up the ground under the levy dewater and compact, the faster the levy subsides.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Re: (Score:2)
The higher you raise the levy, the heavier the levy becomes, the faster the alluvial sediments that make up the ground under the levy dewater and compact, the faster the levy subsides.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
You got it almost right, but it's more like :
The higher you raise the levy, the heavier the levy becomes, the faster the alluvial sediments that make up the ground under the levy dewater and compact, the faster the levy subsides the more upgrades to the levy need to be made which will end up with your construction firm thanks to the congress critter you donated money to ....YAY! PROFIT!!!!
Rinse, lather, repeat.
I'm pretty sure Norway solved this (Score:2)
To be fair I might be mixing up my Scandinavian countries again (all those Nords look alike, amiright?) but my understanding is this is a solved problem but it's really, really, really f'n expensive to solve. Yes, more than $14 billion.
It's kinda like how we'll spend money adding a lane to a high way ins
Well (Score:2)
That's because they don't wanna swim.
$14 Billion sure would've paid for moving a lot of the city instead of going (failing to go) the Holland dike route.
PC BS (Score:2, Insightful)
99% sinking levees, 1% sea level rise.
Weird... (Score:5, Insightful)
So in an area where we know that large and heavy man-made structures will sink, we are still surprised that this is still happening?
One of two things need to happen here:
1) Build it right the first time and get supports that reach down to solid ground and use materials on the levees that will resist erosion.
2) Stop building below sea level.
Re: (Score:2)
So in an area where we know that large and heavy man-made structures will sink, we are still surprised that this is still happening?
One of two things need to happen here: 1) Build it right the first time and get supports that reach down to solid ground and use materials on the levees that will resist erosion. 2) Stop building below sea level.
That sounds nice but it's just so much more profitable to sucker people into buying property below sea level and in other flood prone areas. The you make tons of money off the land sales and the local construction industry keeps getting more work repairing food damage paid for by that inexhaustible money faucet otherwise known as the taxpayer.
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paid for by that inexhaustible money faucet otherwise known as the taxpayer.
Huh? Why should the taxpayers pay when the government can borrow and cut taxes.
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Is there even solid ground to reach in this delta that has developed over millions of years?
Re:Weird... (Score:5, Informative)
150 ft to bedrock [thelensnola.org] under 350 miles [nola.com] of earthen, armored levies is not only economically impractical, it's essentially impossible. You're talking about 350 miles of mid-rise foundation-like construction -- after you remove the existing levy -- in highly compactable soil. You'd effectively be building a 350-mile long, 100 ft wide high end (structurally) basement and then filling it with dirt and concrete.
Re: (Score:2)
150 ft to bedrock [thelensnola.org] under 350 miles [nola.com] of earthen, armored levies is not only economically impractical, it's essentially impossible. You're talking about 350 miles of mid-rise foundation-like construction -- after you remove the existing levy -- in highly compactable soil. You'd effectively be building a 350-mile long, 100 ft wide high end (structurally) basement and then filling it with dirt and concrete.
True, it would be more practical to make the levies float, with foundations that are less dense than the surrounding soil and with sufficient displacement to support the weight of the levies above.
Though it would be even more practical to move the city to higher ground.
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It would probably be easier to use oil well techniques to build a relatively closely spaced wall of concrete columns to resist the flow of dirt towards the gulf. Like an underground retaining wall.
Um....really? (Score:5, Insightful)
11 months after the Army Corps of Engineers completed one of the largest public works projects in world history
One of? This likely doesn't even make an "also-ran" category on the list depending on how you define public works.
Someone forgot that there used to be empires, and they built country-sized public works, not just little coastal state ones. Does it even break into the top 10 largest US public works? Because we've got the interstate highway system, Hoover dam, subways, California irrigation system, rural electrification project, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
Someone forgot that there used to be empires, and they built country-sized public works, not just little coastal state ones..
Speaking of, the Army Corps of Engineers call Holland for advice on this one or did they just assume they knew best?
Nawlins has a problem (Score:3)
The Mississippi river wants to change course. In fact it will eventually come roaring down the Atchafalaya river, leaving the lower end of Old Man River a trickle of what it once was. There is probably nothing we can do, although new divertments might help for a while. But that doggone crustal thinning is going to wreak havoc on all of the infrastructure that has been built in New Orleans.
Certainly the lack of sediments from upstream is shrinking the Delta, certainly rising sea levels is accelerating that. But Mother Nature has a rapid, exciting and likely deadly bit of entertainment waiting in store for Lousiana.
Stop public-funded subsidies for flood zones (Score:2, Interesting)
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Don't live by rivers, where you would get drinking water. It will flood.
Don't live by mountains, where you can have severe winter weather which cause's floods from spring thaws and also mud slides.
Don't live in the mid west, where everything is flat. You will be subject to tornado's.
Don't live on the west coast, where weather is warm and pretty much constant. You are
Re: (Score:3)
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I don't think you quite understand just how large an area "flood zones" actually is.
Got a creek near your house? Then there's also a flood zone. And it's pretty big even though that creek is small.
Ultron (Score:2)
Can we get some vibranium and lift the city into the air, then let the Corps backfill underneath it, then gently lower it back down? Wouldn't that be easier?
Protect the POPULATION (Score:2)
Protect the population, not the city. The city is gone. Continuing to spend money keeping people living on the coast below sea level is madness.
The message is clear: (Score:2)
Momma Nature wants her land back.
New Orleans has always been flooded (Score:2)
The problem is that it's literally built on the silt deposits from the periodic flooding, much as Egypt built from river flooding deposits, and that artificially reducing silt deposit by halting flooding using artificial man made levees means the city itself is sinking.
Let the river flow. Let the mud drop. Build your houses so they can accept periodic flooding, as people in most river deltas worldwide do, and only keep stuff you don't care about on the bottom two floors.
Any engineer worth his salt knows thi
The work is not necessary (Score:2)
Why should we waste our tax dollars on such Sisyphusian endeavors?
Re: (Score:2)
Did they try using VCC instead?
Re: (Score:3)
Need to be careful, most of NOLA is below GND, so you need to use VEE. The problem is the LE-VEE potential was too low and may have shorted to GND.
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Well, it's already joined Zimbabwe, Cuba, and North Korea. South Africa seems headed that direction, too.
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Yeah, those damn Islamists wouldn't have had any chance of getting started if the U.S. hadn't forced them to. And Russia stealing parts of the Ukraine...why, the U.S. was behind that too...dunno how but I'm sure it was them. China casting eyes on a land of free Chinese called Taiwan, the U.S. is making them do that. Venezuela screwing up their oil soaked economy so that it no longer floats, why the U.S. made them do that. Pakistan getting their knickers in a twist over Kashmir, all part of the global U.S. c
Re: Tax Fossil Fuels (Score:2)
Fossil fuels didn't convince anyone to build a coastal city below sea level.
Re: (Score:2)
... blame it on climate change when it fails ...
What do you blame it on?
You sound like an expert ... maybe we could throw water on it from the air?