[Mb-civic] Why New Orleans Is in Deep Water

[Michael Butler]

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    Why New Orleans Is in Deep Water
    By Molly Ivins
    Creators Syndicate

    Thursday 01 September 2005

    Austin, Texas - Like many of you who love New Orleans, I find myself
taking short mental walks there today, turning a familiar corner, glimpsing
a favorite scene, square or vista. And worrying about the beloved friends
and the city, and how they are now.

    To use a fine Southern word, it's tacky to start playing the blame game
before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a
point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that
government policies have real consequences in people's lives.

    This is not "just politics" or blaming for political advantage. This is
about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do about their
responsibilities. And about who winds up paying the price for those
policies.

    This is a column for everyone in the path of Hurricane Katrina who ever
said, "I'm sorry, I'm just not interested in politics," or, "There's nothing
I can do about it," or, "Eh, they're all crooks anyway."

    Nothing to do with me, nothing to do with my life, nothing I can do
about any of it. Look around you this morning. I suppose the National Rifle
Association would argue, "Government policies don't kill people, hurricanes
kill people." Actually, hurricanes plus government policies kill people.

    One of the main reasons New Orleans is so vulnerable to hurricanes is
the gradual disappearance of the wetlands on the Gulf Coast that once stood
as a natural buffer between the city and storms coming in from the water.
The disappearance of those wetlands does not have the name of a political
party or a particular administration attached to it. No one wants to play,
"The Democrats did it," or, "It's all Reagan's fault." Many
environmentalists will tell you more than a century's interference with the
natural flow of the Mississippi is the root cause of the problem, cutting
off the movement of alluvial soil to the river's delta.

    But in addition to long-range consequences of long-term policies like
letting the Corps of Engineers try to build a better river than God, there
are real short-term consequences, as well. It is a fact that the Clinton
administration set some tough policies on wetlands, and it is a fact that
the Bush administration repealed those policies - ordering federal agencies
to stop protecting as many as 20 million acres of wetlands.

    Last year, four environmental groups cooperated on a joint report
showing the Bush administration's policies had allowed developers to drain
thousands of acres of wetlands.

    Does this mean we should blame President Bush for the fact that New
Orleans is underwater? No, but it means we can blame Bush when a Category 3
or Category 2 hurricane puts New Orleans under. At this point, it is a
matter of making a bad situation worse, of failing to observe the First Rule
of Holes (when you're in one, stop digging).

    Had a storm the size of Katrina just had the grace to hold off for a
while, it's quite likely no one would even remember what the Bush
administration did two months ago. The national press corps has the
attention span of a gnat, and trying to get anyone in Washington to remember
longer than a year ago is like asking them what happened in Iznik, Turkey,
in A.D. 325.

    Just plain political bad luck that, in June, Bush took his little ax and
chopped $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers,
a 44 percent reduction. As was reported in New Orleans CityBusiness at the
time, that meant "major hurricane and flood projects will not be awarded to
local engineering firms. Also, a study to determine ways to protect the
region from a Category 5 hurricane has been shelved for now."

    The commander of the corps' New Orleans district also immediately
instituted a hiring freeze and canceled the annual corps picnic.

    Our friends at the Center for American Progress note the Office of
Technology Assessment used to produce forward-thinking plans such as
"Floods: A National Policy Concern" and "A Framework for Flood Hazards
Management." Unfortunately, the office was targeted by Newt Gingrich and the
Republican right, and gutted years ago.

    In fact, there is now a governmentwide movement away from basing policy
on science, expertise and professionalism, and in favor of choices based on
ideology. If you're wondering what the ideological position on flood
management might be, look at the pictures of New Orleans - it seems to
consist of gutting the programs that do anything.

    Unfortunately, the war in Iraq is directly related to the devastation
left by the hurricane. About 35 percent of Louisiana's National Guard is now
serving in Iraq, where four out of every 10 soldiers are guardsmen.
Recruiting for the Guard is also down significantly because people are
afraid of being sent to Iraq if they join, leaving the Guard even more
short-handed.

    The Louisiana National Guard also notes that dozens of its high-water
vehicles, Humvees, refuelers and generators have also been sent abroad. (I
hate to be picky, but why do they need high-water vehicles in Iraq?)

    This, in turn, goes back to the original policy decision to go into Iraq
without enough soldiers and the subsequent failure to admit that mistake and
to rectify it by instituting a draft.

    The levees of New Orleans, two of which are now broken and flooding the
city, were also victims of Iraq war spending. Walter Maestri, emergency
management chief for Jefferson Parish, said on June 8, 2004, "It appears
that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland
security and the war in Iraq."

    This, friends, is why we need to pay attention to government policies,
not political personalities, and to know whereon we vote. It is about our
lives.