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Harry Shearer joins Levees.Org in national levee safety campaign

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

At ground zero in the Lower Ninth Ward, Levees.Org will launch a public service website and campaign to promote awareness that communities all across America are at risk of flooding.

On Friday, July 18 at 10:30am actor/producer Harry Shearer (The Simpsons and Spinal Tap) will join Levees.Org, its supporters, and residents of the metro community for a photo shoot while sporting the new t-shirts.

Click here for map and sign up sheet!

As a public service, Levees.Org has created a searchable data base so citizens anywhere can find out if they’re at risk of flooding by going to AreWeAtRisk.org and entering their zip code.

After levees crumbled and breached during Hurricane Katrina, Congress ordered the US Army Corps of Engineers to inspect levees across the United States. In February 2007, the Corps released a list of 122 levees in 28 states that it believes are at risk of failing.

Stanford Rosenthal, 18 webmaster for Levees.Org wrote a program that converted the Corps of Engineers’ list of at-risk levees into a simple searchable data base.

T-shirts can be purchased on location Friday morning for $20. Citizens are welcome and encouraged to purchase their t-shirt in advance by visiting Dirty Coast, 5704 Magazine Street, Mon-Sat 11-6 (next to Whole Foods).

The t-shirt theme, that many are “in the same boat as New Orleans” is a cooperative venture. After the official launch and photo shoot on Friday, t-shirts will be priced at $25 and Levees.Org will get $5 for each t-shirt Dirty Coast sells. Tees will be available online by 5pm Saturday CST.

Click here for map and sign up sheet!

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Congress makes New Orleans pay to fix federal levees

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

As reported by the Associated Press, Congress is requiring Louisiana to pay $1.8 billion to shore up levee protection in metro New Orleans and must pay it in just three years. This Congressional requirement is unfathomable since it was the federal government’s water structures that nearly destroyed New Orleans and nearby St. Bernard parish in August 2005.

First, the federal US Army Corps of Engineers carved up the Gulf wetlands with 10,000 miles of canals for shipping and oil providing 30% of the nation’s oil and gas production but eroding wetlands making Louisiana more vulnerable to flooding.

Second, a Corps-built navigation channel, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet contributed hugely to wetland loss, intensified storm surge and helped funnel water into New Orleans.

Third, as pointed out by John Barry author of Rising Tide, federally built dams built to provide electricity, irrigation and flood protection in the Upper Midwest and High Plains have trapped sediment causing Louisiana to lose land.

And finally, the Corps of Engineers built shoddy levees in the heart of New Orleans which breached 4 feet below design specs.

The workmanship of the federal US Army Corps of Engineers has killed more than 1,600 people, flooded 85 percent of New Orleans and 100% of St. Bernard.

Haven’t the citizens of Louisiana paid enough?

If you haven’t yet, please click here to demand the 8/29 Investigation Act, a third party analysis of why metro New Orleans was so vulnerable to flooding during Katrina.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for John Barry’s oped in the LA Times.

Corps of Engineers rewriting history on flooding and levee breaches

Saturday, June 28th, 2008

Journalist Georgianne Nienaber recently wrote on the coordinated effort immediately after the Midwest flooding by spokespersons with the US Army Corps of Engineers to deflect responsibility for flooding away from the Corps. Just like in New Orleans after Katrina.

I will add to the fray and highlight some falsehoods coming from Eric Halpin, Special Assistant for Dam and Levee Safety for the Corps of Engineers.

Halpin tried to rewrite New Orleans’ history this week in an interview with Popular Mechanics. PM asked Halpin this question, “So the midwest flooding isn’t about levee failure, like in New Orleans?” and Halpin responded with “…In New Orleans, we had 50 breaches. Forty-six were due to overtopping. In the upper Midwest, there are up to 35 overtoppings. All of the breaches we know about there are due to overtopping….In New Orleans, it took about a year and a half, and a million dollars, to find that 4 out of the 50 were failures. (italics mine)

Falsehood A – “4 out of the 50 were failures.”
The other 46 levee breaches happened because the Corps of Engineers built the levees two feet too low, didn’t armor them and in many places filled them with erodable sand instead of good thick Louisiana clay. So water quickly eroded them during several hours of overtopping. To say they were not failures is obscene. Levee building 101 says plan for water overtopping when building a levee next to water.

Falsehood B – “it took a million dollars”
The federal government paid (with taxpayers money) the US Army Corps of Engineers over $30 million to do the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET). The cost of the peer review alone cost was 1.1 million dollars! The IPET remains controversial because it was managed by the same organization responsible for its performance – the Corps.

Want to do something? Click here to demand the 8/29 Investigation Act to find out why New Orleans was so vulnerable to flooding on August 29, 2005. The result will be valuable to all of America.

Sandy Rosenthal
Founder, Levees.Org
www.levees.org

Click here for the Popular Mechanics article.