September 08, 2005, 8:24 a.m.
Greens vs. Levees
Destructive river-management philosophy.

By John Berlau
With all that has happened in the state, it’s understandable that the Louisiana chapter of the Sierra Club may not have updated its website. But when its members get around to it, they may want to change the wording of one item in particular. The site brags that the group is “working to keep the Atchafalaya Basin,” which adjoins the Mississippi River not far from New Orleans, “wet and wild.”
These words may seem especially inappropriate after the breaking of the levee that caused the tragic events in New Orleans last week. But “wet and wild” has a larger significance in light of those events, and so does the group using the phrase. The national Sierra Club was one of several environmental groups who sued the Army Corps of Engineers to stop a 1996 plan to raise and fortify Mississippi River levees.
The Army Corps was planning to upgrade 303 miles of levees along the river in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. This was needed, a Corps spokesman told the Baton Rouge, La., newspaper The Advocate, because “a failure could wreak catastrophic consequences on Louisiana and Mississippi which the states would be decades in overcoming, if they overcame them at all.”
But a suit filed by environmental groups at the U.S. District Court in New Orleans claimed the Corps had not looked at “the impact on bottomland hardwood wetlands.” The lawsuit stated, “Bottomland hardwood forests must be protected and restored if the Louisiana black bear is to survive as a species, and if we are to ensure continued support for source population of all birds breeding in the lower Mississippi River valley.” In addition to the Sierra Club, other parties to the suit were the group American Rivers, the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, and the Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi Wildlife Federations.
The lawsuit was settled in 1997 with the Corps agreeing to hold off on some work while doing an additional two-year environmental impact study. Whether this delay directly affected the levees that broke in New Orleans is difficult to ascertain.
But it is just one illustration of a destructive river-management philosophy that took hold in the ‘90s, influenced the Clinton administration, and had serious policy consequences. Put simply, it’s impossible to understand the delays in building levees without being aware of the opposition of the environmental groups to dams, levees, and anything that interfered with the “natural” river flow. The group American Rivers, which leads coalitions of eco-groups on river policy, has for years actually called its campaign, “Rivers Unplugged.”
Over the past few years, levees came to occupy the same status for environmental groups as roads in forests — an artificial barrier to nature. They frequently campaigned against levees being built and shored up on the nation’s rivers, including on the Mississippi.
In 2000, American Rivers’ Mississippi River Regional Representative Jeffrey Stein complained in a congressional hearing that the river’s “levees that temporarily protect floodplain farms have reduced the frequency, extent and magnitude of high flows, robbing the river of its ability … to sustain itself.” Similarly, the National Audubon Society, referring specifically to Louisiana, has this statement slamming levees on its website, “Levees have cut off freshwater flows, harming fishing and creating salt water intrusion.” The left-leaning Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, in describing a grant it gave to Environmental Defense, blasted “the numerous levees and canals built on the lower Mississippi River” because “such structures disrupt the natural flows of the Mississippi River’s sediments.”
Some went beyond opposition to building or repairing levees. At an Army Corps of Engineers meeting concerning the Mississippi River in 2002, Audubon official Dan McGuiness even recommended “looking at opportunities to lower or remove levees [emphasis added]” from the river.
The groups argued that the “natural” way would lead to better river management, but it was clear they had other agendas in mind besides flood control. They were concerned because levees were allegedly threatening their beloved exotic animals and plants. In his testimony, American Rivers’s Stein noted that the Mississippi River was home to “double-crested cormorant, rare orchids, and many other species,” which he implied were put at risk by man-made levees.
So far the environmental movement’s role in the events leading to the flooding has been little discussed. One exception is former Rep. Bob Livingston (R., La.), who told Fox News on Saturday that environmentalists were one of the major reasons levee projects were held up.
At this point, there are still questions about the particular levees that broke in New Orleans. Care should be taken about drawing direct conclusions about the causes until there are more facts. But there are some important points that are clear that should put in perspective about levee funding and flood control.
Nearly all flood-control projects — even relatively small ones — are subject to a variety of assessments for effects on wetlands, endangered species, and other environmental concerns. These reviews can be costly and delay projects by years. In the ‘90s, for instance, the Clinton administration’s Environmental Protection Agency required a comprehensive environmental impact statement just to repair a few Colorado River levees that had been destroyed in the floods of 1993.
The Clinton administration would frequently side with environmentalists on flood-control projects, even against local Democrats. The Army Corps of Engineers under Clinton began implementing a planned “spring rise” of the Missouri River that would raise water levels on the Missouri River during part of the year. This was supported by eco-groups, who argued that this restored the river’s natural flows and protected a bird called the piping plover. But farm groups and others said that combined with the ice melting from winter, the project could increase the risk of flooding in river communities and affect more than 1 million acres of productive farmland. Nearly all the Republicans and Democrats in Missouri’s congressional delegation opposed the plan, as did Missouri’s late Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan. But the Clinton administration refused to budge, and this was a major factor in Bush’s carrying of Missouri in 2000.
The Bush administration’s flood-control efforts were often relentlessly opposed by environmental groups, and this opposition was frequently echoed by liberal activists and in the press. Bush kept his promise, and his appointees at the Corps of Engineers have stopped the “spring rise” plan that concerned so many about flooding. Environmentalists launched a barrage of criticism and a series of lawsuits. This was also the case with Bush’s moves to stop the Clinton administration’s plans to breach the dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the northwest. Even though the dams greatly help to control flooding in the region, American Rivers blasted the administration for failing to do enough to save the sockeye salmon native to the region.
Ironically, among those criticizing Bush for his actions to prevent flooding of the Missouri River was the ever-present anti-Bush environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He chastised Bush in 2004 for “managing the flow of the Missouri River.” If, before Katrina, Bush had proceeded full-speed ahead and fortified the levees of the Mississippi for a Category 5 hurricane, Kennedy and others of his ilk would very likely have criticized Bush for trying to manage the natural flow of the Mississippi. And it’s a good bet that many of the lefty bloggers now critical of Bush for not reinforcing the levees would have cited Bush’s levee fortification as another way he was despoiling the natural environment.
— John Berlau is the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
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Another example of how a decision or battle might have seemed like a good idea at the time ...

Mother nature always wins. River were not ment to be restrained.

This topic belongs under the long list in the subject better called, "The Control of Nature," which John McPhee titled his book on this subject probably 20 years ago. It's also a subject seldom discussed absent highly charged emotionalism.

It's not just the Greenies. The environment is certainly central to any such discussion, but there's a lot more. It's also about precedent. It's about social investment. It can be about throwing good money after bad, as in, how much is enough? It's about a type of public welfare.

The levee system that provides, or provided, partial protection to New Orleans is part of a system of over 2,000 miles of dikes, levees, storage reservoirs, and check dams in the Mississippi River system, including projects as far awway as eastern Montana, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, and many more. All this began in the 1800s with the creation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the notion that man can control nature.

The control of nature is an issue of scale, time, and cost. Given ever increasing amounts of money, we can protect larger scale segments of land and property against larger floods or other natural phenomena for longer periods of time. A place like New Orleans is located geographically like the high money payout bullseye in a large target. It is strategically located as a prime target of Mississippi River flooding and Gulf Coast hurricaines. Fortunately peak flood season and peak hurricaine season are offset from one another.

A large part of the Mississippi basin environment has been perturbed and altered for well over 100 years, beginning with relatively small scale levee systems. Over time the system has grown to a scale that may make it the largest public works project in the world - of that I'm not really certain, however. The combined project provides immense public benefits in the form of flood damage protection, irrigation, increased supply of arable land for agriculture, and floodplain development - which has serious pros and cons, as the recent hurricaine event has made rather obvious.

Complete control of nature isn't physically possible, even if it were economically feasible. This thesis should come up in the discussion about rebuilding NO. Dispite the current criticism of the Bush administration for Corps funding cutbacks on LA/NO levee maintenance, a rational analysis (you know, the kind of analysis least likely to be made of this issue) has to consider the environmental costs, the economic costs, as well as the prospective social benefits. Because of the extensive development of the NO area, much of which averages eight feet below mean sea level, the social benefits are relatively high, but not at any cost. Society has to make public investment choices about how much, in coarse, crude, dollars and cents, just how much the social benefits of NO is worth to the U.S.

Let me digress a moment and say that the way Corps projects are evaluated and funded has changed from the early years of the Mississippi project and from not so long ago. For the last 25 to 30 years, a Corps project cannot be funded unless there is a benefit cost ratio of at least 1 (one). Yes, the U.S. used to spend public funds on lots of projects that returned less than a dollar of benefit for every dollar spent, hence the term pork barrel for some. Congress also saw fit that the beneficiaries of federal spending should pay more than the rest of the nation for projects that merit the federal interest. Local sponsors must pay 50% of the costs of feasibility studies (which includes environmental studies, which is probably also why local governments like to short change the environment), and 25% of the total cost of developing a project. Enhancements to the LA/NO levee and flood protection system are probably prohibitively expensive, unaffordable at the local level, and likely why the system remains at the level of development that recently existed. Repairs to existing projects can be federally funded at 90 or even 100%, I think, and that will apply to the damage the existing system has incurred.

Given the extensive amount of damage, the ought to be some public debate as to the federal interest in public spending on a system that ultimately cannot provide 100% protection to NO over the long term. And we've discovered that it can't even provide 50% protection over the long term, which may be unprecedented for a Corps project. Typically they do much better. A Corps project usually provides X% protection up to a Y% probability event.

Like I said, this is a subject that cannot seem to be discussed rationally; highly charged emotions invariably over-ride objective and intelligent debate.

So, like I said, it ain't just the Greenies. It's just as much about public investment, both intelligent and stupid. As an American taxpayer, how much is it worth to you to provide less than 50% protection of NO for a 1% probability event (flood or hurricaine)?

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Interesting subject it's true. The justification for damming of rivers for various reasons is often debatable.
Everything has a price as the Egyptians are learning. Since the Aswan dam was installed on the Nile the renewal of the bottom land farmed by the locals has ceased to occur. Used to be the Nile dumped myriad tons of silt from the high country onto the flood plain of the Nile. The agricultural treasure that resulted supported the Pharoahs and the Egyptian Civilization for millenia. Aswan ended the annual replenishment of the agricultural treasure.
Weren't the bad floods along the Missouri River a few years ago the result of the Corp attempting to justify their existence with bad science? I don't know, just asking. I know there was a lot of fingerpointing going on about trying to force a river to do what it and gravity said wasn't possible.

very well put salmo

Sardonicus,

Yes, much finger-pointing. That's human nature, I guess. But it really was/is the same thing. The control of nature is impossible. However, the Corps can provide 90 to 95% protection against up to a 1% or even 0.02% probability event at some cost. Naturally, the higher the % protection, and the lower the % probability of the event being protected against, the costs rise astronomically. That, I think, is the discussion that doesn't occur among the American taxpayers who pay for these things. They are held with Congressional representatives, however, with highly charged emotions influencing politics, they aren't necessarily the basis for decision-making.

I was listening briefly to the radio yesterday and overheard just this discussion - how much is it worth to rebuild NO? Of course, there is no simple answer, as parts of it will readily be rebuilt at cost effective investment ratios, and other parts won't be worth rebuilding at any price. And that's the concern I have, that emotional decisions will be made to rebuild at any price, without rational thought being involved. How much can the U.S. really afford? One statement was that the U.S. will spend one trillion dollars. Personally, I doubt one trillion even comes close. NO is about the size of Seattle. No way could you build, let alone rebuild, for $1 trillion.

It's not so much about the price tag. I think it's about how much is really cost effective. Hope that conversation plays loud and long before we just drive the deficit into outer space and take down the empire.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

i say turn it into a bass park.......and maybe fan boat paintball park in other parts


4'-25' of depth is perfect for a bass pond

Lupo,

Don't need to. It already is a bass pond, courtesy of Katrina. Didn't you see the photo of GHWB and GWB fishing in downtown NO?

Anybody ever ask why so much of NO is 8 feet or more below sea level?
With the engineering of river deltas and beachfronts NO lost their barrier islands, as well as huge chunks of salt marsh. Sediments that were deposited on the NO floodplains ended up way out in the salt. With the natural subsidence of the NO sediments, and no new sediments to replace the sinking soils, NO is now below sea level in many places. It will continue to sink indefinitly, until the waters reclaim what we have borrowed.

Build the levees higher and higher and you postpone the catastrophe, and also make it worse. Right now there are scientists studying how to direct the flows of sediment rich waters to replace barrier islands. Maybe they'll have some answers as to what to do with whats left of NO.


vince