AP: Judge OKs Katrina flood suit vs. Corps

[Eugene]

Posted on Fri, Feb. 02, 2007

Judge OKs Katrina flood suit vs. Corps
CAIN BURDEAU
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS - Residents whose homes were flooded during Hurricane Katrina can sue the Army
Corps of Engineers over claims the agency ignored warnings about defects in a nearby
navigation channel, a federal judge ruled Friday.

The ruling, one of the first significant decisions in a set of cases over what caused the flooding,
may force the Corps to hand over documents about the management of the channel.

-snip-

At issue is a 76-mile shipping channel built in the early 1960s as a shortcut to New Orleans. For
years, environmentalists and others have criticized the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet because it
has eroded enormous tracts of wetlands and increased the threat of flooding.

During Katrina, storm surge traveled up the channel and overwhelmed levees protecting St. Bernard
Parish and eastern New Orleans, according to scientists. The Corps of Engineers has acknowledged
that the channel contributed to the region's flooding and the agency wants to guard against future
flooding by building flood gates.

Full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16609298.htm

[KamaAina]

1. Yes! And they can pay their judgment with the $$ that was diverted to Iraq

from the levee maintenance budget. The source here is Walter Maestri, the emergency manager for suburban Jefferson Parish, not exactly a liberal anti-war bastion.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12647

When Katrina struck, resources were stretched. First there was the matter of the money. "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, told the Times-Picayune newspaper on June 8, 2004. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

[toopers]

2. Yes, but you could say that about any government program . . .

that was deemed wasteful . . . not just the war in Iraq. As well, this is going to expose the local governments who are suppose to be the first line of defense for its citizens.

[KamaAina]

3. But was money actually diverted from the levees

to pay for "any government program that was deemed wasteful"? Answer: No.

this is going to expose the local governments who are suppose to be the first line of defense for its citizens.

The Corps, not local government, designed, built, and is responsible for "Mr. Go", as it is locally known, and indeed for the entire failed levee and floodwall system. The Corps was put in charge of flood protection in the lower Mississippi basin after the catastrophic Mississippi River flood of 1927, described in the Randy Newman classic "Louisiana 1927" ("Louisiana, Louisiana, they're tryin' to wash us away...").

[Olney Blue]

4. K and R