Katrina is a problem greater than funding cuts to the Corps : NOLA Indymedia

As the suffering and misery in New Orleans intensifies, critics in the media have begun launching attacks against the Bush administration. This response is understandable, for the record clearly shows that the administration’s preoccupation with nonexistent threats (i.e. weapons of mass destruction) shifted government resources away from flood protection in the New Orleans area. Nonetheless, the critics overlook the deeper sources of this disaster while they also ignore the plight of the other flooded areas around the city.

While budget cuts to the Army Corps of Engineers may have handicapped the upgrading of the levee system, a major project of Corps, the Mississippi River Gulf-Outlet, lead to the most drastic flooding in Eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. This ship channel brought in the storm surge which overwhelmed the levees on the Industrial Canal. On the Sunday before Katrina hit, Mark Schleifstein of the New Orleans Times Picayune, predicted the exact scenario. Residents of the area have long understood the risk of this waterway, locally known as the MR-GO. For example, the Coalition to Close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (http://www.ccmrgo.org/) has been making this case to the Corps and local government for years. So why did the Army Corp fail to address this problem?

Well, it was not due to budget cuts by the Bush Administration. To answer this question requires an appreciation of local history, which is lacking in the media. From 2001-2003, I worked as a research assistant and independent contractor for the Center For Hazards Assessment Response Technologies, a research center at the University of New Orleans committed to integrating social science into environmental management. Our team of researchers drafted evacuation studies, participated in the construction of government reports, and wrote scholarly articles. While my limited experience does not represent a full insider’s perspective into the larger policy-making machine of Louisiana, it hopefully conveys an appreciation for the central issues behind this catastrophic event.

The MR-GO is a 70-mile ship channel that connects the Port of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico in a route as straight as a ruler. It began as a bad idea from the Port of New Orleans to promote economic growth. The Corps initiated construction in the late 1950s when boosters for the Port claimed that the MR-GO would convert New Orleans into the next Rotterdam and encourage an“industrial renaissance” in St. Bernard Parish. These grandiose promises of an economic bonanza never materialized: the only growth locals witnessed occurred in the canal itself, which expanded from its original width of 500 feet to 2500 feet in some places because the wake of giant ships continually caused the canal’s banks to collapse. Critics attributed over 40,000 acres of wetland loss to this “marsh-eating monster” and described it as a “hurricane superhighway” that would exacerbate the risk of deadly floods.

In public meetings and publications, a number of committed individuals and organizations demanded that the Corps close the MR-GO (e.g. Coalition to Close MR-GO, Gulf Restoration Network, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, and St. Bernard Sportsman’s League). Nonetheless, the Corps refused to correct its own deeds of environmental destruction. It ignored the public outcry; it failed to seriously take into account public safety; its policy protected not people but the economic interest of port industry and steamship companies.

The MR-GO represents the egregious tension between environmental protection and public safety with the money-making imperative of unfettered business interests. The inundation of the eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish constitutes more than an engineering failure. It signifies a failure of our governing institutions to represent and serve the public interest; it represents a failure in the promises of economic development to improve the quality of life in our communities. And, the ongoing failure in the media is salt on the wounds. I would like to see a real examination of the deeper sources to this crisis. However, the mainstream media seems more concerned with looting. And although I agree that the Bush administration should be held accountable, there is limit to the productivity of the Bush-bashing orgy.
Neither will make this catastrophe a learning experience which may help us prevent such events in the future.

Brian Azcona was born in New Orleans and has taught sociology at Xavier University and the University of New Orleans. As part of his research for the Center of Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology at the University of New Orleans, he examined the interrelationships between culture, politics, economy and Louisiana coastal land loss.