The Saltwater Decade

On the bright side, we're all cooking the most lovely pasta these days. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday that it will build an underwater sill to keep saltwater from moving up the Mississippi River, the fourth-straight year in which the structure has been needed to protect upriver water systems. 

The barrier will be constructed near Myrtle Grove in Plaquemines Parish. Due to a deepening drought, the Mississippi's flow rate has fallen and that is allowing saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico to travel north.

The Corps has built the sill every year since 2022. Prior to that year, the agency had only built a sill in the river three times: in 1988, 1999, and 2022.

Who gets the money, then?

Jeff Landry took another step today toward throwing the state's biggest coastal restoration project into the trash.

Gov. Jeff Landry's administration has ordered a 90-day pause on work on Louisiana's biggest-ever coastal project, the controversial Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, arguing the state cannot afford the more than $3 billion plan and stressing that it must be smaller in scale.

The decision, confirmed by the state's coastal officials, halts nearly all work related to the project, which has been planned and studied for years and broke ground in August 2023 on the west bank of Plaquemines Parish near Ironton. Funds related to the 2010 BP oil spill are intended to pay for it, but state coastal officials say rising costs mean Louisiana will be on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars, if not more.

The story goes on to say that there are contingency funds available through NOAA (which *probably* still exists?) to cover some increases in costs, although not increases in costs that directly result from the Governor sabotaging the project with delays.  There's also the possibility of another $744 million from Chevron if that judgment holds up on appeal. But if Landry isn't interested in spending the BP money on the coastal projects it was intended for, then it's unlikely he will apply that appropriately either.  

Which raises the question, what does the Governor intend to do with this money, if anything? It's also possible he's holding those funds and these projects for hostage pending another go at his tax reforms that just failed at the ballot box.  But who knows. 

It's afraid

 The salt water wedge is backing away. 

The Mississippi River saltwater wedge threatening New Orleans-area water supplies has retreated more than five miles, marking another positive development after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced last week that the salt water creeping upriver wouldn’t arrive at local intakes until weeks after initial projections, if at all.

The wedge was at river mile 63.9 as of Monday, according to information available on the Corps website. It had reached River Mile 69.4, or about six miles south of Belle Chasse, as of Oct. 2.

No idea what happened. Maybe the rent was too damn high. 

The boats must flow

There are priorities here that simply will not be questioned.  The matter of whether or not anybody can live in the city takes a very far back seat to the matter of how much profit can be sucked out of it.  Can you afford the rent/mortgage/insurance? Nobody cares about that compared to how much houses are flipping for in the neighborhood. Do your kids have a good school? Nobody cares about that compared to how much can be grifted away by private charter operators? Are you safe from floods? From poisons in your air and water? Nobody cares about that compared to how much oil and gas can be extracted and refined and sold into global markets. Is there a reliable source of fresh water nearby? Nobody cares about compared to... 

The Army Corps of Engineers has known for decades that its continual efforts to deepen the Mississippi River for bigger ships would eventually trigger the saltwater crisis that has now gripped the New Orleans area for weeks.

“This is certainly something that everybody knew was going to happen,” said Cecil Soileau, a retired Corps engineer who warned in a 1990 report that dredging the lower river would threaten the region’s drinking water.

Gotta have the boats.  Recall, also, the last big channel we dug for the boats also killed the city in 2005.  People are disposable. The boats, the oil, the money; that's what matters.

Very accurate leaning. The most accurate leaning. More and more people are saying this

 It turns out we've got plenty time left. 

A new forecast for saltwater intrusion moving up the Mississippi River has surprisingly bought lots more time for the New Orleans area — and raised the possibility that most of the city and Jefferson Parish could be spared from the threat altogether.

The change in forecast had to do with factors related to the river’s flow, work by the Army Corps of Engineers to elevate a sill and the Mississippi’s depth at the salt water’s current location.

The cone of uncertainty for the arrival of this wedge must be pretty wide. Who even knows the correct speed of salt anyway?  Anyway, the wedge isn't coming as quickly as they thought.  There's a bunch of reasons listed for that in this article. The river didn't lose as much flow as they thought it would. The salt is also sinking into a "pocket" in the riverbed near Belle Chase. Possibly a tandem float ran into a tree. I don't know. 

But it does change the plans a bit. Maybe by a $250 million bit, in fact. 

On top of that, based on modelling through November, the Corps now thinks the leading toe of the salt water — at the bottom of the river — could stop somewhere between river mile 112-113, or in the River Ridge-Kenner area.

If that does occur, the toe will not have reached far enough to cause salinity on the surface of the river at the locations of the West Jefferson plant in Marrero, New Orleans’ Carrollton plant for its east bank and the East Jefferson plant.

As a result, chloride levels in drinking water would be expected to remain below the 250 parts per million threshold for those plants. Surface water tends not to exceed that standard until the toe advances 15 to 25 miles upriver from it, given the wedge shape of the intrusion.

New Orleans may be able to avoid having to build an emergency pipeline to dilute the salt water at an estimated cost of between $150 million and $250 million. The Corps cautions, however, that forecasts could very well change. It now plans to update its forecasts for the public every Thursday.

That's quite a difference from just a few days ago when it looked like the pipeline wouldn't even make it on time. A similar effort in Jefferson Parish appeared to be moving faster which led everyone to begin making the usual jokes/trolls about comparative governmental efficiency.  Little did they know Orleans was "leading the way," the entire time. 

When it comes to where Orleans parish stands currently in its effort to mitigate the saltwater intrusion, when compared to neighboring parishes, Cantrell says the parish is ‘leading the way’.

“I'm saying don't believe the hype. The city of New Orleans, Sewerage and Water Board, we're leading in this capacity, or we're getting the responses that were due,” she said.

“Again, at the federal level. I've been always leaning in, always attached to the briefings, always advocating picking up the phone and calling myself so no asks have been done by anybody else. First, but me. But of course, echo, you continue to ask. And you continue to serve, circle the wagons to demonstrate why the solution is a collaborative one, that there's buy-in across the board, that we can actually get it done, that we have the talent to get it done. And we need the resources the federal government is listening, and the state is listening.”

Always leaning in, yes. That's what you have to do when you serve, circle the wagons.  But then we found out it is just as important to lean in with accuracy. 

"So, make no mistake about it, the city of New Orleans is not behind anybody, or anyone. The city of New Orleans is leading in this capacity. You know, regardless of what you hear," she said.

But not long after she said that, Jefferson Parish began construction on their West Bank pipeline. Meanwhile, Orleans is still nailing down contractors. Usually, the city's procurement process can take months. When asked if they were expediting the process, she said the city is moving ahead.

"So again, working aggressively every day. The contract and procurement process has started, in short order will be completed, because the time is now. We all understand that. And everyone is lean, leaning in with urgency, but also wanting to lean in with accuracy," Mayor Cantrell said.

On second thought, maybe the thing that's actually holding the wedge back is the great wall of sound that happens whenever the mayor speaks.  Whatever it is, it's working. Keep doing that.

Tick tock

For those of us reaching a certain age, the idea of bending all of reality to run on Sewerage and Water Board time does sound nice.  But I don't think it works that way.

NEW ORLEANS — According to the latest projections, Orleans and Jefferson Parish water intakes on the Mississippi are expected to have saltwater impacts by mid to late October. 

The saltwater wedge that now threatens the drinking water supply for nearly a million residents has reached Jesuit Bend about 20 miles south of New Orleans. 

Area leaders say a 10 to 12-mile-long pipeline will be needed to deliver fresh water from upstream, north of Kenner. 

“To be able to end up with an intake at that location and pump and pipe that downstream into our intakes and as well as Jefferson Parish’s does remain our most viable option,” SWBNO Deputy Superintendent Steve Nelson told the city council on Wednesday. 

 It is expected to cost up to $200 million to build the pipeline. 

 But as of Friday GOHSEP, the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness had not received a detailed pipeline plan or a formal request for state funding from the Sewerage and Water Board. 

According to the Army Corps of Engineers, city leaders also still haven’t applied for the necessary environmental permits to build the pipeline. 

Look, I get it. I hate deadlines too.  Never been one to meet most of the ones that applied to me alone.  But when it affects hundreds of thousands of other people... 

 Update: The two minute offense is cranking up! 

NEW ORLEANS — The governor's office has received and approved a plan to combat the saltwater intrusion in Southeast Louisiana, state officials said on Saturday. 

More details on the specifics of the plan, approved Friday night, are expected to be released by officials by the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans as the project moves forward. 

"The corps and the state received their proposed solution and didn't have any issues with SWBNO pursuing the procurement process," Officials in the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness told Eyewitness News on Saturday.  

However, the plan still requires the USACE to sign off on the environmental permits. 

 Plenty time left?

What do people need? What should people do?

In one regard, we're getting a lot of information about the salt water. We know roughly when it will get to each intake. We know it will be as long as three months before it is gone. What we aren't getting enough information about is what can/should be done about it and, more specifically, who should be doing what thing. 

For instance, it's become clear that, although we don't know the severity of the issue, there's going to be a problem with contamination through corroded pipes. There's going to be a problem with lead.

The city has incomplete and unreliable information about its 1,500-mile water pipe system. How much of it is encased in lead is unknown.

That’s “the million-dollar question,” said Adrienne Katner, a drinking water researcher with the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. “We have no idea how many lead pipes remain in the city, but in my field research it was rare for me to find a home without a lead service line.”

About 48 percent of the New Orleans water system was installed before 1940, making many pipes more than 80 years old. Lead was a common pipe material until the U.S. banned it in 1986.

It’s safe to assume the water from any faucet in the city has come into contact with lead, Murphy said.

“We’re a very old city, and we still have lead in everything from our distribution system to the feeder lines to individual homes,” he said.

About 88 percent of nearly 400 homes tested on the East Bank had lead in their water, according to a 2018 study by LSU. While lead levels were generally lower compared to the EPA's action level of 15 parts per billion, many health officials stress that there is no safe level of lead.

That sounds like a critical vulnerability to a citywide public utility. How do we fix that? Who is responsible for fixing that?  Nobody knows!  Some of these articles are beginning to suggest that each of us is just on our own to identify and purchase the appropriate expensive equipment.  

Luckily, if it's right for you, systems that work and won't break the bank are available for homes, and run about $200 and can be installed under a single sink.

These work through reverse osmosis, where a semipermeable membrane separates salt from water, Scientific American reported. Systems are available for whole homes, as well, but start at $1,000.

Reverse osmosis is the only way to remove man-made chemicals called PFAS that have been linked to health hazards. Some systems can also remove lead, in addition to bacteria commonly found in water.

Depends on whose bank we're thinking about breaking here, but for a lot of people, $200 is a lot of money to spend on something that *might* help.  If people need filters just to have safe water during an emergency then FEMA (the agency responsible for handling emergencies) or S&WB (the agency responsible for delivering safe drinking water) should probably get them for people. 

Of course we don't know if that's exactly the thing that should be done. (Better figure it out soon, though!) But if it is, then that's who should do it. 

 

Emergency pipeline

Don't panic. It turns out the thing we kept saying wouldn't be a problem is a bigger problem than we thought. But it's okay. We're just taking extreme emergency measures around you as you go about your day. 

Water barges will be insufficient to deal with salt intrusion at New Orleans' Carrolton plant and for the east bank of Jefferson Parish and construction of a pipeline to deliver water from further upstream is being looked at, officials said Wednesday.

Cost estimates for such an effort are currently between $100 million and $250 million and federal funding is being sought, New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board officials told a City Council committee meeting.

Article doesn't say a whole lot about logistics. But they do make it sound like the "temporary" pipeline can be built in the short time between now and when the salt water gets here to be of use. Which is sort of a surprise given the usual speed at which infrastructure happens around here.  

Anyway they also say that the pipeline can, in the future, become a "permanent solution" to salt water intrusion. This implies what everyone already knows; that this is likely to become a regular problem as the effects of climate change progress. It causes one to wonder how long the pipeline plan has been on the shelf. More to the point, why did they wait until the last minute to deploy a known solution to a known problem? 

Update:  Oh well maybe it won't be built in time after all.  

Contractors are offering assurances that the work could be completed despite the short timeframe, but officials are preparing for the possibility of making bottled water available if there is a gap. The city is also looking at water conservation methods, Arnold said.

That is very exciting! Also that says once it's here the salt water will probably be around for 3 months or so.  As usual, be ready to hunker down. 

Upperdate:  Ah and we have visual confirmation that operation pipeline is already underway 

Confirmed: temporary @swbneworleans water intake station for NOLA and JP being constructed on S&WB-owned land at IMTT playground on Anthony St. in St. Rose. Implying the Corps believes the salt wedge won't make it there. https://t.co/yw65r7r2iy

— Matt McBride (@Matthew67052126) September 27, 2023

Okay well what is the plan, though?

We get lots of quotes to the effect that "local officials are preparing for impacts" from the salt water.  Not a lot of information about what they plan to do.  Or even what they recommend that you do. Besides, just, be aware and prepare or something.  

Of course there are things that could have been done ages ago to prepare our vulnerable water utility to handle this very predictable scenario. But one thing we've learned about disaster recovery vs disaster mitigation is that the emergency no bid contracts that come with the latter tend to be better opportunities for the important people to profit. So, really, this is just the market at work.  As for you, personally, well, look, there's still time to prepare!

While there’s still time to prepare, the clock is now ticking for local residents and businesses.

“A little worried for sure. Especially with the holidays coming up cause not only do we have to deal with that, but we have to deal with the water possibly being contaminated with a bunch of salt water and so that’s going to be a big issue for us,” Debarbieris said.

Ok. How, though?  How do we prepare. Besides just panic buying water if we can find it?  Doesn't matter. What matters is you internalize the idea that whatever happens is somehow your fault for not preparing enough. That's always the way with this stuff. It's definitely part of the model for climate change response going forward. So get used to that. 

Careful with those

Little nurdle panners on Algiers Point. They collected about a pound in 30 minutes. pic.twitter.com/iNsGNyANbq

— Tristan Baurick (@tristanbaurick) August 24, 2020

 

I hope they aren't planning to collect the nurdles and drop them at the doorstep of the chemical company executives responsible for putting them in the water.  If they do that John Bel might have them arrested.

Oh yeah that's still going on too

The high river situation we experienced last year is still happening and may be yet another one of those new normals you always hear about.

The vulnerabilities of current water management practices on the Mississippi River were readily apparent in water year 2019, when the unprecedented amount of water had a variety of effects, including stressing ecosystems and contributing to shipping accidents and disruptions. The water level was still elevated in July 2019 when Hurricane Barry moved into the Gulf and threatened to compound the situation with storm surge, which could have been catastrophic. The high water has continued into this year. In fact, as of 28 February, the Mississippi River had already exceeded the critical 4.6-meter monitoring threshold on 21 days in water year 2020, compared with 16 days by the same date in water year 2019. Since 1990, there have been only five water years (1991, 2005, 2016, 2019, and 2020) with more than 1 day above the 4.6-meter stage by 28 February. And with extremely high antecedent soil moisture and abnormally high snowpack throughout the Missouri River Basin this year, along with record precipitation regionally, the expectation is for yet more flooding along the lower Mississippi.

They're already planning to open the Bonnet Carre this week perhaps.  Please do not gather in large groups to watch.

In anticipation of the spillway opening, St. Charles Parish announced that because of the coronavirus physical distance restrictions, the Wetland Watchers Park and three spillway boat launches will be closed at noon Thursday. The opening itself will not be open to the public, and no access will be provided to the viewing site, officials said.

Dig a deeper hole

The headline here says they're going to spend a ton of money dredging the Mississippi River in order to accommodate deeper draft vessels. The lede makes sure to let us know that Steve Scalise helped. But I wonder if maybe this last bit is really the bigger story.

The Army Corps of Engineers will spend $85.35 million this year to begin deepening parts of the Mississippi River navigation channel between Baton Rouge and the river's mouth to 50 feet, 5 feet deeper than at present, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, announced Monday.

And President Donald Trump's proposed fiscal year 2021 budget, also released Monday, includes another $45.7 million for the dredging project, but no money for the long-discussed new lock on the Industrial Canal or the "Morganza to the Gulf" levee project.

They're usually so proud when they chip off even a little bit of funding for Morganza. And since that is actually supposed to be a flood control project, you'd think we'd make a bigger deal out of it not happening this year. Does the Corps even do flood control anymore? This says they're taking a $1.7 billion overall cut in Trump's budget proposal.  They're going to need a bigger federal commitment than that if they want to get this 50 year plan to raise the New Orleans levee protection system up and running before the sea swallows us all.

As for the lock, Ninth Ward residents have been dreading/pushing back against the project for years raising questions about its very necessity as well as its impact on their neighborhoods.  I would have thought the pause on that would have been the headline here. But we do have to make sure Steve Scalise looks good first.

Okay but what is the impact of not opening it?

Pretty sure it's bad either way.

Two environmental groups are threatening Monday to file suit against the Army Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi River Commission and the Interior Department for failing to evaluate the impact of repeatedly opening the Bonnet Carre Spillway.

They cited the spillway's effects on nine endangered species, including sea turtles, birds, fish and marine mammals.

The threat to sue, issued Monday, is required by federal law to be delivered to federal agencies 60 days before a lawsuit is to be filed. The law gives the agencies time to correct any legal wrongdoing they may have committed before the suit is filed.

Meanwhile, it's high river season already.

Just gonna leave the spillway open all the time now

It's another January high river season.

“This morning, the National Weather Service forecast has the river getting to 15.1 feet here at the Carrollton gage,” Roe said. “We are watching that very closely. Trigger point for phase 2 flood fight is 15 feet and rising so we are seeing if that forecast is going to come in a little bit lower of a little bit higher and we will make a decision of whether to go into phase 2 based on that.”

On Jan. 9, the Corps entered its stage one flood fight following the river’s rise to 11 feet. Roe said the high river is due to heavy rain to our north that is now making its way to the coast.

In recent years, flood fights in January have been followed by springtime openings of the Bonnet Carre Spillway to relieve pressure on levees from New Orleans south.

2019 was an absolutely devastating year for oyster fishers on the Louisiana coast.  It would be a while before they'd begin to recover either way. But now they face the prospect of going through it all over again.

Meanwhile, in  other flood control news, just as the corps of engineers begins public discussions of necessary upgrades to our perpetually sinking levee system, the big question we've been worrying about for over a decade is coming to a head.  How do we pay to maintain the system we have?

The multiparish dispute is complicated by many factors, but the principal one is that the Lake Borgne levees protect parts of Orleans and Jefferson parishes in addition to St. Bernard. The agreement calls for St. Bernard to bear most of the cost of maintaining them, and many residents and officials see that as unfair.

The parish’s residents have twice voted down a proposed 7.5-mill property tax that would have raised new money for levee maintenance. St. Bernard residents already pay an 11.33-mill tax that mostly goes to levees. Had the new tax passed, the various levee district millages would have been reallocated, with 15.4 mills going to levee maintenance and 3.43 mills transferred to the parish for drainage.

That’s more than St. Bernard’s neighbors pay their local levee districts: New Orleans residents pay a little over 10 mills for levee maintenance, and East Jefferson property owners pay just 4.02 mills. However, New Orleans residents also pay 16.23 mills for drainage, and Jefferson residents pay between 4 and 5 mills.

The parish governments and flood protection authorities each have their own pots of money and constituencies, but, as we all know very well, they're really maintaining one big interdependent system. So, even under the wholesale reorganization of the regime after Katrina, there will always be disputes like this to deal with.  Apparently, there is a fix in the works, albeit a potentially problematic one.

CPRA officials said Wednesday they plan to submit a bill in the upcoming legislative session that would address such funding disparity issues for both the east bank and West Bank regional levee authorities. The legislation might allow the authorities to set regional tax rates to pay for levees' operation and maintenance.

I'm very curious to see more about how that works.  I assume it still means that tax rates have to be authorized by voters in one way or another.  Or maybe not?

Nobody knows nuthin

Barry. It's a thing that exists now.

Tropical Storm Barry's potential impacts are coming into sharper focus as the National Weather Service said Thursday that it now expects total rain accumulations of 10-20 inches over a swath of southeast Louisiana, with isolated maximum amounts of 25 inches through the weekend.

The pockets of heaviest rain, the National Weather Service predicts, would occur in areas around Baton Rouge and south to the coast.

That's pretty good news for New Orleans, relatively speaking.  But it's a few days away still so we'll see. 

Already by yesterday we had arrived at the point where everyone asks the mayor if or when she is going to call for evacuations. Sometimes I think they're almost daring her to do it. But, as LaToya pointed out, you're always free to leave at any point if you really want to go. Nobody is going to stop you.

Though she declared a state of emergency, Cantrell said it was too soon to say Wednesday whether the city would call a voluntary or mandatory evacuation ahead of the storm’s arrival.

“We will make those calls once we feel they need to be made,” Cantrell said. “As it relates to residents leaving, people can make up their own mind based on conditions now. That’s something that they can always do.”

Today she added to that saying "We look (for) a Category 3" before calling for evacuations. That sounds informally correct. But also it sounds new in the sense that there is or ever was a hard and fast policy. Often it seems like LaToya is making it up as she goes along.  There are good and bad things about that.

In a sense, there is a "voluntary" evacuation on right now. Really, all evacuations are voluntary. Even a "mandatory" evacuation order doesn't mean police are going door to door and pulling people out of their homes.  They don't have time for that during an emergency. The critical decision from the mayor's point of view is whether or not to kick the city assisted evacuation procedures into action. That involves mobilizing buses and police and volunteers and staging venues and all sorts of stuff. It's not a decision to pull the trigger on unless you think it's definitely going to be necessary.

Meanwhile from an individual's perspective, there are all sorts of factors that go into deciding whether or not to evacuate. If you have a place to go and the means to get there then you might consider it.  But evacuating may be more of a risk for some than staying put.  Not everyone is mobile enough to just up and go at a moment's notice. Not everyone can afford to miss a few days of work. Not everyone's boss or landlord is going to be cooperative. Then there is the fact that evacuating is expensive as hell. Not everyone has money put away for emergencies. And there are other costs to leaving beyond just the money spent on the act. Sometimes after a storm has passed, the city might decide to drag its feet on allowing people to come home. Evacuees might find themselves stuck out on the road longer than they had planned with compounding consequences for their lives when or if they ever get back. So, by all means go if you can or want to. But it's hardly ever the right decision for everybody. "Mandatory" evacuations should be called sparingly if at all.

Also it sucks to be stuck in some shelter hundreds of miles away when you could be at home managing the situation.  Maybe you can mitigate damage by being on hand to patch a broken window or move some of your belongings out of harms way if the water comes up. Or what if it turns out your car wasn't parked in the safest spot?  Maybe you can get it moved before the water gets high enough to damage the engine... even if you don't quite make it in time to keep it out of the cab. Still, at least you can get to work cleaning it up right away. Can't do that from some gym floor in Alabama or whatever.



Anyway we're probably not going to call any sort of evacuation for Orleans Parish. It's not usually something that happens when a yet-to-be-organized storm is still expected to become a category one hurricane at worst.  The main reason it's being taken a little bit more seriously today is because people are freaked out about this river situation.

Storm surge accompanying potential Category 1 Hurricane Barry may cause overtopping Saturday of much of the Mississippi river levee in the Lower 9th Ward, Algiers and St. Bernard Parish, according to Army Corps of Engineers levee data.

The National Weather Service's Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center in Slidell expects the surge will add between 3 and 5 feet to the unusually high river in New Orleans and locations to the south, reaching as high as 20 feet at the Carrollton Gauge in New Orleans.

Basically what's happening is, as the storm surge piles in from the Gulf, the river can't discharge at its mouth as fast as it ordinarily would which causes the water level to rise a bit more in its channel. The predicted spike is only expected to last about a day. And, in most spots, they're saying it won't go above the height at which the levees are designed to hold it.

Maybe.

But a map of levee heights in the New Orleans area that's part of the Corps' National Levee Database shows that the top of large segments of river levees along the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish on the east bank, and some locations in Algiers on the West Bank, were between 18 and 19.99 feet.

Thus, a 20-foot river height could cause overtopping at those locations, something that has never happened in New Orleans' modern history, and only rarely in St. Bernard.

So there is some discussion as to how serious this actually is.  To begin with "overtopping" is not necessarily a disaster unless it becomes serious enough to scour out and undermine the levee itself. At that point, well, look out.  But the Corps says, #actually that list of levee heights may not be the list that counts. 

Late Wednesday, a spokesman for the Corps,  which oversees construction and repair of the river levees,  said officials in its New Orleans District office discounted the data in the agency's database.

"They show the levee elevations for the 9th Ward between 20 and 21 feet," said spokesman Ricky Boyett. "Our modeling does not show overtopping of the levees in the 9th."

According to this they're still worried about overtopping becoming an issue in Violet and in several spots in Plaquemines but the supposedly vulnerable places in New Orleans probably won't be as bad as the maps suggest. There are some confusing reasons for this. But it sounds like the Corps is saying it depends on how you measure water. 

And Boyett said there's a good chance that the way the water in the river is measured, compared to the height of levees, could provide about 8/10 of a foot of additional protection.

The river gauge on which the water levels are measured uses a 1929 datum measurement to determine its height, while the corps uses 1988 datum for levees, resulting in the height difference, he said.

I think what they're saying is that in 1988 they found out the water wasn't as wet as it used to be so it's okay for it to go higher now.   McBride actually explains it here reminding us that the "datums" discrepancy was a key factor in the design flaws that led to the flooding of New Orleans after Katrina.

Literally finding #1 in the Corps' own wide-ranging "IPET" investigation of their own failures which caused the levee failures after Katrina passed New Orleans was that the Corps' use of different bases, or "datums," for measuring heights was a serious contributor to the failures. Doing so allowed shorter structures to be built without anyone realizing it until it was too late. Some levees or floodwalls ended up multiple feet shorter than intended.

So maybe that's not very reassuring.  But this might be. 

Forecasters have lowered by a foot their predictions for how high the Mississippi River will get once Tropical Storm Barry's comes ashore this weekend, giving the New Orleans-area levees a bit more breathing room.

The Mississippi is now expected top out "near" 19 feet above sea level at the Carrollton Gauge in New Orleans on Saturday due to the storm surge from Barry, which is expected to come ashore as a hurricane, according to a National Weather Service alert sent out Thursday morning. Forecasters had previously predicted the river would reach 20 feet during the storm, potentially matching or exceeding the height of the Mississippi River levees.

Of course 20 is still "near" 19. That's good or bad depending on your particular datum orientation. And, of course, the surge forecast can change again or be entirely wrong anyway. At the very least this shows us that even the most precise measurements and models employed by the professionals in charge of managing critical infrastructure still boil down to guesswork.  In other words, nobody knows nuthin.' But we already knew that.

Case in point, here is Alli endeavoring to "untangle the knot" of everything we know and don't know about what caused yesterday's street flooding. It's a lot of things. From the basic philosophy underpinning our water management strategy, to the design and engineering of its components, to the maintenance of the infrastructure, to the politics that chooses what gets emphasized, there are so many unknown knowns.  We would like to think the trick is to at least separate out the bullshit. But how do we even start?

Untangling this knot will take time, but it has to start with everyone telling the truth. After an event like today, the public outcry for SWBNO to fix the pumps will continue. But I think it’s almost more important for them to be clear about what they do know and don’t know about the system that we have, rather than throw more money at repairs in the short term. At least then we can start on a path of actual public information about risk, and what it would take to change our approach to water management. Right now, we aren’t even sure what’s broken, besides “everything.”

What's actually broken? Nobody knows!  So what do we do now? There are all sorts of ideas people have about who they'd like to see benefit and who they'd like to see suffer in the meantime. The politics is going to happen even whether we're ready to say what we know or not.

Is it becoming too dangerous or "unsustainable" to live in South Louisiana? Or are there sincere actions we could take to save what's left before it's too late?  Nobody knows. But oil and gas and shipping still want their infrastructure protected. The tourism cabal still wants to host parties in New Orleans. It's fine with them if everyone else is a "climate refugee"

This, again, is why I don't expect we're ever going to fix these things.  Climate change isn't a "game changing" existential problem politically speaking. Politics is always about who wins and who loses and the interests of concentrated wealth run contrary to the concerns of the "99 percent." Guess who usually wins.  In New Orleans, we might not know precisely what's "broken" about our storm management infrastructure. But we still have to act based on our most honest appraisal of the guesswork we have now, or cede every decision to actors who have none of our interests in mind. Even in full view of this the best we can hope to do is to watch the shitty politicians  muddle on through a slog of concessions and compromises.  Unfortunately muddling through is going to have disastrous consequences for the great majority of people while the rich continue to make themselves richer.  But that's what always happens.

State of emergency

The mayor declared a "state of emergency" with regard to the damage done to fisheries and waterways by the opening of the Bonnet Carre spillway. I saw this and thought maybe it makes us eligible for federal relief or something. It probably does, actually. But there's more to it.  What does this mean?

With the emergency declaration, Cantrell now has the ability to adapt any ordinances that could interfere with the steps the city takes to appropriately cope with the issue at hand. At the time of the proclamation, other nearby parishes had already issued their own state of emergency declarations, including St. Tammany, St. Bernard and Plaquemines parishes.

I don't get it. What "steps" do they need to take.  The mayor's press release says it gives her the power to  "suspend the provisions of any regulatory ordinance that prescribes the procedures for the conduct of local business along with other potential impediments to necessary action in coping with the emergency."  What businesses need to operate outside the bounds of ordinary regulation in these circumstances?

All dead

Not mostly dead. All dead.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - Oyster fishermen are saying 100 percent of what they dredge up is coming up dead, which is not only a serious hit to their livelihoods but could have lasting impacts for years to come.

Fishermen will tell you part of the draw of the job is just being out on the water, but the waters near the Biloxi marsh are a little too quiet.

“North, east, west, there’s usually someone harvesting someone trawling you don’t see nothing, there’s not one person out here,” said oyster fisherman, Gregory Perez.

Gregory Perez says he's worked for years building and tending to these acres of water, or his private oyster leases. This year was supposed to be the most lucrative for him until the oysters started dying.

Perez blames this swirling blue-green algae blooms he’s seen intensify in the area. He says it’s killed off all the oysters he was planning to harvest, including the young oysters that would be ready years from now.

“Twenty-five square miles of blue-green algae in this area, and everybody's oyster farm in this area they’re 100 percent completely dead,” said Perez.

I noticed this week Rouses was running a sale on shucked gulf oysters.  The price was still high because Rouses but it does make me wonder where they were getting them from. Might have to be wondering that for a while, it turns out. 

A spokesperson with the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says as the oysters die, and the flood continues, the crisis is just beginning for those in the oyster industry.

“We’re also going to see the aftermath of the flood in terms of additional algal blooms… they’re not going to be able to recover quickly,” said Fisheries Administrator, Harry Blanchet.

“We have more damage now. This is worse than B.P. this is worse because we don’t have any reproduction,” said Perez.

The growing menace of barge rage

Jackie's navy is still in dry dock, unfortunately.  Meanwhile the chaos is growing.

A barge on the Mississippi River hit “something” early Wednesday morning (June 12), knocking out power for thousands in Algiers, according to a report from WDSU. 

More than 5,000 Entergy customers along the river lost power for about two hours, according to the utility company’s outage map. Power had been restored to all but 50 customers as of 6:30 a.m.

Entergy told WDSU a barge hit “something” that knocked over a utility pole on River Road at Patterson Road. The crash happened around 4:20 a.m., the report said.

Paging Jackie Clarkson

In the year of our lord 2011, during the most recent time of river flood crisis, one New Orleans City Councilperson proposed a rather pro-active strategem.

Officials keeping watch over New Orleans levees have not reported any errant vessels on the river, though the matter is a top priority.

"One of the big issues that we're facing is motor vessles, barges in particular, we need to keep them off the levees," Susan Macclay of the West Bank levee authority said Thursday during a news conference.

All vessels are supposed to stay 180 feet away from the slope pavement, she said.

City Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson on Thursday barge owners and operators who don't moor their vessels that the city will sink all untethered vessles.

"We can't afford to have barges breaking loose, breaking levees," she said.

We never got any details about how Jackie's barge defense system was supposed to work. Would she fire the cannon at them from Washington Artillery Park? Are there still damnable torpedoes in the river somewhere?  It's probably classified.  But somebody knows the answer and we may have need of it now. According to Channel 6 we are already under attack. 

A dock along the Mississippi River was damaged Thursday when a pair of unloaded barges struck it. The dock is located at the Piety Street Wharf. The barges remain intact. Damages done to the dock are still being assessed.

Hopefully whatever naval forces we have to scramble aren't built by Metal Shark.  Because it looks like Plan A for taming the river is off again.

The Army Corps of Engineers has delayed opening the Morganza Spillway above Baton Rouge indefinitely in response to slightly better forecasts for water heights at the spillway and upriver, corps spokesman Ricky Boyett said Thursday (June 6).

But officials warned that future rainfall could still force the corps to operate the emergency structure to move part of the Mississippi’s high-water flow into the Atchafalaya River during the next two months.

“Operation of the structure will be a consideration until the Mississippi River crests and begins to fall,” said a press release issued by the corps. “The expected crest at Morganza is on about June 15th, but it will then remain high for two weeks or more.”

“The Army Corps of Engineers only intends to operate the structure when needed as to not put additional water into the Atchafalaya Basin,” the news release said.

Okay well we will stand by for whenever that is.  Maybe if the levees keep failing upriver, the problem will take care of itself.  
 

We have to do something

They delayed the Morganza again. 

Enough pussyfooting around with all the knobs and dials on the river. Time to call close enough good enough and let it all rip. I mean we have to do something, right?  What is the worst that could happen?

Scientists don't yet know what precise weather conditions could overwhelm the Old River complex, but anything stronger than the 2011 event would present a "real risk," and the risk will continue to increase as more sediment is deposited in the channel, Xu said.

“These changes diminish the river’s capacity to carry water on its current course. When sections of the river’s floor rise to a sufficient point, a sudden increase in flow — perhaps from a flood — could drive the Mississippi River to overwhelm the control structure and adopt a new path, potentially causing the Mississippi to be captured by the Atchafalaya,” his research summary states.

Okay okay but there's too much nerdy engineering in all that.  Tell us about something else bad that could happen.

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) - As hurricane season approaches, one expert said he worries what kind of impact high water in the Mississippi River will have in an active hurricane.

Though river levels will likely be lower during the peak of the season, Alex Kolker -- a coastal sciences professor at Tulane and LSU’s Marine Consortium -- said storms still pose a threat.

High river levels this year have forced an unprecedented opening of the Bonne Carre Spillway and, likely, the Morganza.

“This river is managed for river floods and it’s managed relatively well. The one thing it’s not managed for is if you were to have a hurricane and a river flood at the same time,” Kolker said. “A high river like we have now, in late August, that would be a bigger concern.”

Yeah but that's not very likely to be something we are gonna have to worry about in June, right?  Right?

Ugh! Look, fine. Everyone, let's all do our civic duty to be as pro-actively freaked out as possible because that is supposed to help for some reason. But can we also maybe try and live our lives in the meantime?   LaToya says we are too busy in the summer hunkering down and whatnot to have a parade but I would like to see the evidence for this.

The Mystic Krewe of Nyx has responded to New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell's decision to nix plans to host a summer parade.

On Monday, Cantrell rejected the proposed July parade citing "public safety resources in the middle of hurricane season."

Nyx leadership announced plans for the parade in May. The 8-year-old, all-female krewe wanted to become the first major krewe in Carnival history to have two parades in a single year. They would have rolled on July 27.

That's not a good reason to deny the permit.  A better reason to deny it would be because, even though there are plenty of parades that happen outside of Carnival season all year long, including several during the summer months, this particular organization is captained by a con artist who is constantly looking for ways to leverage her position into one ponzi scheme after another. The summer parade was probably one of those.

As of this writing, the Freret "summer strut" is apparently still on. My guess is that is because a second line style event is subtle enough to get a pass while Nyx had a big attention-getting downtown parade with Kern floats and stuff planned.  A lot of Julie Lea's problems tend to issue from her never having learned to sophisticate up the corruption.

Anyway, just saying we don't have enough cops during the summer is nonsense. The State Troopers in the Quarter are so bored, in fact, they are shooting people for minor traffic violations. And, really, what would it hurt to pull a few NOPD off of curfew enforcement duty for a day? According to almost every expert rounded up in this story, the curfew does more harm than good anyway.  They tried telling that to the Cantrell people but were defeated by logic.

A 2016 article in The Guardian also raised the problem of curfew laws increasing police interaction with youth that isn’t always positive. "It was really kind of scary to have them treat you like a hardened criminal,” a 19-year-old who was stopped for a curfew violation told the newspaper: 

New Orleans officials said they are aware of the research questioning the effectiveness of curfew laws, but Stevens said officials concluded the enforcement is in the best interest of public safety.

“Right now, it’s important that we do something, and we have to do something with a sense of saving our young people to the streets,” Stevens said. “One way is to start to let them know laws are in place. You need to abide by the law that’s in place.”

"We have to do something"

"Ok but that thing you are doing is ineffective and probably harmful."

"But we have to do something."

QED

If the Corps of Engineers had that attitude, we'd have opened Morganza weeks ago.