The New York Times also has an A1 floodwall article today. Up top it mentions “federal budget constraints” that kept the floodwalls from being tested. Here is my friend’s take:

Rich, I just read the article and is it interesting that the fourth paragraph (above the fold) cryptically mentions “budget constraints,” but when you get to the jump page it has several worthy items that have nothing to do with funding from Washington. If one does not read the entire article you might think that lack of federal funds is a key reason for the breaches in New Orleans. First, on the bottom of the first column, the article refers to using inverted T walls in the corps flood manual “but that option was not considered because T walls are more expensive, REQUIRED A BROAD BASE OF DENSE SOIL FOR SUPPORT AND WERE NOT NECESSARILY STRONGER.” (emphasis mine). This means you need more land for earthen structures to do a T wall that has been resisted by local property owners and elected officials in New Orleans near the lakefront, the Ninth Ward and Saint Bernard dating from Hurricane Betsy’s aftermath in 1965 all the way until the present. The last phrase about strength is puzzling because it seems to contradict the Corps (and independent assessments) own assessment that earthen structures are superior to concrete walls. Additionally, the article correctly points out that post-Betsy efforts at the local level were delayed by environmental litigation in the 1970’s (and refusal to move strucures to allow for larger earthen structures) resulting in the Corps and the Congressional delegation shifting to other approaches, including flood walls. Finally, I would be wary of any comments by officials from the Orleans Levee Board because they would appear to bear a growing amount of responsibility for the breaches in Orleans Parish.

Here is the key bit about enviros: “A surge from Lake Pontchartrain was the catastrophic situation that the corps had been guarding against since Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago. Initially, the corps wanted to build a giant barrier to keep water from the Gulf of Mexico from reaching Lake Pontchartrain and flooding the canals.

That project was delayed by lawsuits from environmental groups that contended the corps had failed to study ecological effects. By the late 1970’s, the corps abandoned that approach and began raising levees along the lake and the Mississippi and adding flood walls on the canals…

Max Hearn, executive director of the Orleans Levee District, said that if the federal government was now ready to pay for Category 5 protection, it seemed unlikely that the flood wall system could be upgraded to that level.

But Mr. Hearn said the only answer might be the construction of flood gates designed to limit a hurricane surge in Lake Pontchartrain – the same idea that was considered and dropped in the 1970’s.”