New Orleans 10 Years to Catastrophe

Unless the resecuring of the New orleans, wetlands and levees gets rolling there could be a far worse problem to deal with in the near future.

Time is running out for Louisiana's vanishing coast

Humans have no more than a decade left to act before the ongoing loss of Louisiana's coastline becomes irreversible.

So conclude the experts in the first installment of a multipart series on coastal land loss that the New Orleans Times-Picayune began running yesterday:
Unless, within 10 years, the state begins creating more wetlands than it is losing -- a task that will require billions of dollars in complex and politically sensitive projects -- scientists said a series of catastrophes could begin to unfold over the next decade...

...Congress provided a note of hope last year, voting the state a permanent 37.5 percent slice of offshore oil revenues for coastal restoration work. But full financing -- some $650 million annually -- won't kick in until 2017.

Additional report
Louisiana Coast Has 10 Years to Avoid Irreversible Destruction

Very nice find!

Environmentally, New Orleans is (and always was) a disaster. Deltas are very unstable environments, and while it was a convenient port, it's now suffering the same problems as other delta ports around the globe.

I suspect this is one that they will not support ("it's those whacky environmentalists again") until it's far too late. I hope for something better, but I think in our current social climate that it won't be done until disaster is actually in progress.

My first reaction after Katrina was "Why bother trying to fight what common sense says is a losing battle", but we are (or should I say they, the region's displaced, and the city itself are in this "limbo" ),"we will rebuild" rhetoric which doesn't sound reasonable fiscally, or in common sense practical. If you want to protect New Orleans from this type of devastation would take a very high investment, which in the end could prove worthless. What are you going to do, put up 30' levees to protect a city already below ground level?

What happened was a once in a lifetime event, is the gov't just going to shore this place up and pass the next disaster to the next genreation?



[edit on 2007/3/5 by JacKatMtn]

The shore erosion has been known about for quite some time as I recall, and I'm pretty sure it was known before Katrina.
I believe that if something major doesn't happen soon, the NOLA will suffer much more when the next big storm hits.
The city needs to be relocated, IMHO, if and until major work is done. No levee will help them if the wetlands continue to erode.

Mankind is losing another battle with Mother Nature.

Originally posted by DontTreadOnMe
Mankind is losing another battle with Mother Nature.

So true,

New Orleans hung in there, battling the forces for quite awhile,

it is time to give this area back to..

Mother Nature....

What real reason is there to keep fighting against the forces of Nature, not least Erosion? It may be slow, but it is pretty near unstoppable and to suggest that the Louisiana coast should stay the same, is well, pointless.

Like Byrd said:

Environmentally, New Orleans is (and always was) a disaster. Deltas are very unstable environments,

This is the point, it's built on sand or similar as it's in a delta, it's not even like its very far above sea level, so of course it will eventually be flooded and eroded away.

The land goes in a continual cycle, from either being erupted from a volcano, to being washed away by the sea, and forming sedimentary rock. (or something like that). It's a constant cycle, land is always being eroded, nothing we can really change.