We broke it, you buy it

When new hurricane protection levees settle, U.S. won't have to help pay repair costs

Congress will no longer require the federal government to help pay the cost of raising new hurricane levees when they subside, a rule change that flood managers in Louisiana argue could make it impossible to properly maintain the new system now being built.

Tomorrow is the last day of the 2010 Hurricane season. We hardly knew it. It seems like so long ago that the future of everything in New Orleans depended on the redesign of the damaged and inadequate flood protection measures the Corps of Engineers once famously admitted comprised a "system in name only" into a modern and sustainable bulwark against the possibility of our world ever being destroyed by water again. Gone were the days when we would aim to meet only the most minimal standard when it came to protecting the lives and livelihoods of our families and neighbors. Well, that's what we said we wanted anyway.

"We're building a system that, at the end of the day, will be certified to give us the 100-year protection that's required" in order to buy federal flood insurance, said Steve Wilson, president of the State Association of Levee Districts. "But if there's no money three or four years from now to raise our levees back up to that level of protection, what have we really accomplished?"

As it stands right now, the project authorized by Congress and scheduled for completion next year not only meets a minimal and inadequate standard, there is no provision to ensure the funding levels necessary to maintain even this poor standard.

The other day, while flying back into New Orleans after the holiday, our plane took the somewhat rarer route into town from the east. Out of my window I had a clear view of Mobile Bay, the Mississippi Gulf Coast and its barrier islands, the Chandeleur Islands, and the Louisiana coast, all of which appear much closer together when viewed from the air than one typically thinks of those places being.

As we approached the city, we flew in over the fragile and fragmenting wetland marshes of lower St. Bernard Parish. As we crossed Lake Borgne I craned my neck to get a glimpse of the one-of-a-kind mega surge barrier the Corps is building across the Intracoastal Waterway.

Wilson said another key operations and maintenance issue that will be examined next week is the continuing concern of both east and west authorities that Congress is saddling the districts with operating massive new structures in the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway that should clearly be operated by the corps.

Although all other navigation structures on the Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River are maintained and operated by the corps, Congress once again failed to include that mandate in post-Katrina legislation financing construction of the world's longest surge barrier and multiple navigation gates to stop surges out of lakes Borgne and Pontchartrain from entering the Industrial Canal. Another sector gate across the Intracoastal Waterway is also part of the $1 billion West Closure Complex to block surge from entering the Harvey and Algiers canals.

Gate expectations

"Not only is the corps building a bigger system, it will be more complex," Doody said. "Operation and maintenance costs of the surge barrier and Seabrook gate alone are mind boggling.

Here's to making it through another storm-free year. Until these inadequate systems are complete, we can't afford to have anything more threatening than that. After they're done, we may not be able to afford many more seasons with or without storms.