# City Of Oh Hell Yes

This is how you know it's been a good day in New Orleans.

NEW ORLEANS - A cement truck got stuck in a sinkhole in the French Quarter Tuesday morning. Crews were apparently working on the sinkhole when the truck fell in on Burgundy near Ursuline.

Oh come on

This is because we moved the embassy to Jerusalem isn't it? 

A sinkhole has developed on the White House’s North Lawn, reporters observed Tuesday.

Did these guys finally get what they were after?

The Rev. John C. Hagee, a televangelist who gave the closing benediction, has said the Holocaust happened because God’s “top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel,” a prelude to the Second Coming. In an email, Mr. Hagee said his comments, in a sermon about the problem of evil in a world of God’s creation, were taken out of context, and he has apologized for any offense.

David M. Friedman, the American ambassador to Israel who presided over the embassy dedication, said evangelical Christians “support Israel with much greater fervor and devotion than many in the Jewish community.”

“You’re running a country, you need friends, you need alliances, you need to protect your people,” he said in an interview.

When is the second line?

I mean, it says "Rejoice!" right there in the headline.

A gaping, 20-foot sinkhole on Canal Street, which cost the city millions of dollars, provided instant fodder for amateur comedians and which was honored at an impromptu May 5 celebration, has been repaired at least two months ahead of schedule, city officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu will reopen the section of Canal Street near Harrah’s Casino on Tuesday. The street has been blocked off since the ground opened in late April.

It's good to see the mayor is going to make it out for the, um, ribbon cutting or whatever they have planned. But you'd think Canal Street could at least get a welcome on par with what they gave Costco or CVS.   You can find those in any city.  Our world famous sinkhole deserves better.

"Off the cuff engineering"

Now there's a phrase that inspires confidence.

"This is a very unique situation in that we have to come up with the kind of the off-the-cuff engineering solution to close the end of a tunnel in the middle of downtown New Orleans, and there's a lot of underground facilities that we have to consider to make sure we don't make anything worse,"  said Mark Jernigan, director of the Department of Public Works.

Lots of complicated systems to consider. They don't fully understand the precise cause of the collapse. But the repair is a rush job because there's all sorts of doings about to be transpiring. 

The foot of Canal Street is at the cusp of a renaissance. Four Seasons is expected to move into a renovated World Trade Center. The ferry terminal got $15 million in federal grants for a major makeover. City planners are chewing pencil ends as they decide how to rework an admittedly convoluted traffic pattern around Harrah's.

The hole shouldn't impact any of those plans, Jernigan said.

"This is going to be a very fast-paced, evolving project, and things are going to happen pretty much every day once we start working," he said.

 This doesn't necessarily mean something bad.  But it's... well it's something to think about.

Dig a deeper hole and then you'll feel better

"That's alright. You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed and it's five years later. So let's be fair." - Ray Nagin

So a few weeks ago, we thought it might be cute if we framed this post about the Trade Mart redevelopment lawsuit with an interesting B story about an adjacent patch of real estate.   

NEW ORLEANS - Closures near the foot of Canal Street are unearthing a problem many residents didn’t even know existed.

It’s a 50-year-old problem in the making.

Underneath the street, a tunnel which stretches from Canal to Poydras Street is starting to buckle and has caused a shut down in the area.

The tunnel was built by the city in 1966 as part of a planned Riverfront Expressway that would have run along the edge of the French Quarter.

First of all, people knew the tunnel existed. It's one of many bits of local trivia anyone who lives here at most five years or so inevitably picks up. Please stop condescending to us, WWLTV.  But that's not the important part of that story. This is. 

“It was probably a temporary design made out of steel and they probably didn't paint it," says Levees.org engineer H.J. Bosworth. "Those unpainted structures under the City of New Orleans don't stand a chance."

Bosworth said the concern now is if the damage underneath will cause the street above ground to collapse. He said there are several layers of concrete that prevent major damage.

"The collapse wouldn't be catastrophic and things dropping like 20 feet or anything like that,” Bosworth explained. “Something like that collapses little by little."

Yeah, well, famous last words and all... 

A sinkhole that opened up at the foot of Canal Street Friday (April 29) will take up to six months and $5 million to repair, city officials said.

The collapse, which caved in a 30-foot-wide section of one of New Orleans busiest streets, happened just a few feet away from the spot where Mayor Mitch Landrieu and his infrastructure team had been standing hours earlier in a 50 year-old tunnel that runs underneath the road.

The team was on site to inspect one of the tunnel's walls, which had begun to buckle earlier this month, allowing water to spill in. A few hours after they left, the wall collapsed, taking the road along with it.

"This is nothing short of incredible," Landrieu said. "Unfortunately, it's not a surprise," given the city's creaking infrastructure and unstable soil, he said. "Still, I've never seen anything like it."

Mitch is right. New Orleans, like most American cities is desperately in need of massive infrastructure investment. Remember way back when President Obama was cowed into compromising on a much smaller stimulus package than we really needed?  The conservative argument at the time was that there just aren't enough "shovel-ready" projects to justify throwing money at.  This was never true, of course. The past week alone in New Orleans provides plenty of examples.

On Thursday afternoon, a water main burst on Constantinople Street opening up a massive hole that swallowed most of the road. It's the sort of thing liable to happen anywhere in town on any day. S&WB estimates the city loses 40 percent of its water supply to underground leakage.  On Friday morning, we read about a study showing unacceptable levels of lead in local drinking water. Rectifying these chronic problems seems like imminently "shovel-ready" projects already.   The Canal Street sinkhole is really just for fun.

And yes, we do mean that literally.  As is prone to happen with these little events, the sinkholes became the internet distraction of the week. The jokes came fast, furious, and mostly terrible. "Throw in a doubloon and make a wish" Zing! "Maybe we can get it to swallow the Liberty Monument" Heyyooo! "Put the sinkhole up on Airbnb" Natch. "A sinkhole is actually the geometrical manifestation of doing more with less." Huh?

And then there was this.

Local fascination with the city's first-ever Sinkhole de Mayo party on Canal Street spread so fast Tuesday (May 3) organizers were forced to move festivities to nearby Woldenberg Park. Now the news has gone national.

The Daily Beast writer Ben Collins talked to party co-organizer Chrissy Gross to get background on the viral event and understand why thousands of locals "might show up to a random sinkhole in the middle of a New Orleans road to celebrate Mexico beating the French in 1862."

It's going on right now as I type this. Look at 'em go.

Sinkhole de Mayo sounds funny at first. Hey let's make light of this thing that happened. Better that than yet another round of pouty #FixMyStreets harangues. But then skip a few beats and it gets tagged with the "That's so NOLA" bullshit that inevitably gets pasted on to everything that happens anymore. Next thing you know national media outlets are picking it up and it may as well be a NOTMC branded event. That gets it turned into a tourism ad, and suddenly we're stuck with even more of that dreaded "hipster" cred.  No one is allowed to react to anything like a human anymore without seeing that immediately captured and commodified. This is how joy dies.

Plus now it's a meme. Sinkholes are very popular. Everyone is on the lookout for the next big one. 

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) - Another large chunk of roadway opened up in New Orleans today – the third one in less than a week.

Officials with the city’s Sewerage and Water Board said the latest sinkhole happened at 800 Taft Place in Mid-City. They said work to repair the hole will begin tomorrow if weather permits.

Sure, sure, Imma let y'all finish. But let's remind everyone which was the Greatest Sinkhole Of All Time. That one took five years to fix. This thing on Canal Street, they're gonna do in six months.

New Orleans' backbone is about to go under the knife.

An army of engineers, designers and builders will descend on the riverside end of Canal Street in the coming weeks to operate on a herniated reminder of the city's crumbling infrastructure: a 600-square-foot sinkhole that opened up across from Harrah's Casino.

The City Council voted 6-0 to give Mayor Mitch Landrieu's administration the emergency go-ahead Thursday (May 5) to hire the Metairie firm Hard Rock Construction for what could be a $5 million, 6-month job to repair the collapsed wall of an underground tunnel, backfill the fresh chasm and resurface Canal's lakebound lane. Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey was absent.

Oh it's an emergency. Well when you put it that way.

"Now get off your asses and let's do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country." -- Ray Nagin (again, of course)

*

Get em coming and going

The drama of frequent environmental disaster in Louisiana sure does make for good theater. But it's not really even the source of the deep trauma.  That comes later as the victims are slowly taken advantage of over a period of many years after the event. 

So if you really know what you're doing, you'll get your people in on both sides of that business.

I believe Connie M. Easterly is the former, possibly current, wife of Shelby Easterly.  I don't know if this officially constitutes a conflict of interest but I would think it should have been disclosed to the court before he applied for the Special Master position.  

But then again, in this state a judge could get caught in the sack with a juror and it would be overlooked.  Now a judge, a prosecuting attorney and a juror....that ménage à trois may raise eyebrows...maybe.  

Also note that Calvin Fayard was formerly a law partner of one of Texas Brine's current attorneys,  James E. "Jimmy" Kuhn.  Kuhn also served as a judge for Louisiana's First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Environmental law in Louisiana

That's it. That's the whole punchline.

Son of sinkhole

Yes, Virginia!



Just in time for Carnival season, too.  According to the 504 Not Found pothole app,  the thing to do with theses is stuff them with beads anyway.  Lord knows, people have tried everything else over the years.

In any case, you have to admire the precise placement of that Doritos bag.  If the pothole is big enough, the debris will find its way in.

The rent is too damn high

Getting higher too.

Orleans Parish ranks 13th among 500 counties for the chunk of income that renters will pay in 2015, according to a report by real estate data service RealtyTrac. The national average is 27 percent of a renter's income.

RealtyTrac analyzed fair market rent data for 2015 issued by the U.S. Housing and Urban Development. Read RealtyTrac's report here.

Meanwhile, Orleans is among the top 25 counties nationwide where the millenial population is growing. The share of millenials (defined as being born between 1977 and 1992) grew by 20 percent in New Orleans from 2007 to 2013. Other cities where younger people are flocking include Austin, Texas, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Va. See that list here.

"These millenials will be driving strong demand for rents in the next few years," said RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist in a video explaining the report.

Jesus, please stop blaming "the kids today."  The problem is not "millenials."  The problem is a series of deliberate urban policies meant to encourage luxury development and to push poor people out of the way. In New Orleans, in particular, there's the added scheme to allow the available housing in residential neighborhoods to be given over to the tourism industry.  This is starting to make life, not only more expensive, but also uncomfortable in more subtle ways. It injects a new kind of tension into the most mundane things. Consider this, for instance.

My car is in an.. interesting state these days.  It turned twenty years old this year and, while it runs great, it's coming apart in ways that are difficult to do anything about.  Most critical is a left rear "quarter glass" window that was shattered in what I think was probably a weed whacking accident about a year ago.  Every few weeks I make calls around to auto-glass guys and junkyards but no one can find the appropriate piece of glass to replace it. So, for now, the left side of the car is covered in a big patch woven out of duct tape.

It doesn't really bother me in the meantime.  In fact, I often take a silly kind of pride in its distinctiveness. I am either the living proof that the "broken windows" theory of crime and blight is bullshit ... or... it's 100 percent true and I am single-handedly holding back the total gentrification of my block.  Either way, it's pretty terrific. I have a standard to uphold.


I've been thinking, also, recently about the "Fix My Streets" movement created this year by some entitled Lakeview residents and how their "Pimp-My-Pothole" series of ironic protests differs from the fun we've had with our sinkhole over the past few years.  "Enraged and engaged" says Clancy DuBos's column about these brats. Can someone really be "enraged" about a hole in the ground?  Apparently, yes.

But when our sinkhole appeared, we weren't enraged at all.  We were amused. Here is something interesting that seems fairly harmless for now, we thought.  Of course, I hoped that it would be fixed eventually. At the same time, I knew that finding out just how long "eventually" ended up being would be interesting (four years, it turned out.) And as long as it wasn't an actual nuisance, it might also be kind of fun.

And it was.  It started out humbly enough.



Then it grew a bit.



Then people started throwing things into it.



Those things became more interesting.





Soon a mighty tree (well, a big bush) emerged.



Which was great because it meant that, during Halloween, we could do this.



And, of course, during Christmastime, we could do this.



What a great time all of that was!  No one was hurt, the city was not embarrassed.  Unlike our friends in Lakeview, we did not consider this experience any sort of drag on the city's recovery. It was a harmless and interesting thing that happened. And it was something that was resolved on a timeline fitting to its low position on the city's long list of priorities.

This year, the city finally fixed the sinkhole on our corner and, in doing so, ripped up the bush that was growing out of it. But, like I said, there are standards to uphold now. So we simply moved the holiday decorations down to the weeds growing out from under the side of the building.



Last week, I was walking to my car when  a pair of ladies came out of the illegal (for now) short term rental across the street it was parked in front of.  They didn't see me there as they stopped and examined the car for a moment before one of them kind of smirked and said to the other, "Poverty." Then they walked off to catch a streetcar. 

At this point, I am pretty much the source of all the "cultural authenticity" these people airbnb their way into New Orleans to gawk at. At least in this neighborhood, I am.  So I guess my question is, now that I'm a significant "culture bearer" is there some sort of grant I can apply for?  Because the rent is pretty damn high right now.

Pimp my not-pothole

Sure, Gambit, go ahead and run your "pimp my pothole" contest after ours is filled in.

Yes, that description dares to ask, "Where is New Orleans most iconic pothole?" I don't... I can't...

Look, never mind that right now. I'm not entirely sure our sinkhole is even disqualified.  Sure, it's been filled, technically speaking. But it hasn't exactly been fixed.  It's just a big break in the street filled in with dirt and bricks.

Oh and also some potting soil.  We put that there in order to plant sunflowers.  They're doing pretty well so far.











Still a ways to go, obviously. With any luck they'll begin to flower just as the city arrives to repair the curb and pave them over.

Hustlin'

The New Orleans poor have always lived by the hustle, eking out inadequate wages and suffering chronic underemployment with off-the-books make­shifts in the underground economy. -- Lawrence N.Powell



It's "Clean Zone" season out by the Fair Grounds.

Another Jazz Fest, another stern warning from City Hall for local entrepreneurs looking to cash in by selling parking spots, souvenirs or other goods.

Over the past few years, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration has taken a strict approach during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, enforcing laws that say anyone wanting to operate a parking lot on commercially zoned property must get a permit.

A city-issued reminder this week reiterated that position and also warned that police will be “aggressively” enforcing rules against transient vendors selling goods from cars or trucks within the festival’s “clean zone,” a wedge of territory bounded by Florida Avenue, North Broad Street, Esplanade Avenue and Bayou St. John. Signs have appeared near the Fair Grounds reminding would-be hawkers about the rules.

If you read NOLA.com on a regular basis, you'd get the impression that "Entrepreneur Week" lasts for at least six months out of the year.  It must finally be over.  This city of start-ups sure does enjoy sending mixed signals.

As Mominem notes in a comment to a previous post, New Orleans has a reputation for flexibility regarding "gray market" activity. Informal vendors have sold homemade art, crafts, food, hucklebucks, etc. out of their own homes or carts for decades while facing occasional but often light official restriction.

Long before the laws governing gourmet food trucks became a newsworthy controversy, mobile food vendors like this one were frequently found at or near the city's outdoor festivals, second lines, or Mardi Gras parades.



At Mardi Gras 2006, the pirate seen here acquired her bottle of pink wine from the smugglers pictured just over her shoulder in the background.



From time to time there are efforts to rein some of this stuff in.

Here are some guys being cited for unlicensed beverage sales outside of the Superdome last year in accordance with a stepped up enforcement effort.



I took a bike ride through the "Clean Zone" Sunday afternoon.  There were the usual offerings of "Ice Cold Water One Dollar" available but not much other street vending in evidence.  I did happen upon a "for display purposes only" set up of handicraft handbags.  Also there was a guy with a cart full of goofy political paraphernalia including even a "Cliven Bundy for President" T-Shirt.  It's hard to imagine much of that was selling but you never know.



Anyway, so in keeping with the entrepreneurial spirit that makes our city so great, I'm pitching some ideas for local TV production.  Everyone knows the Louisiana film tax credit is the surest get-rich-quick scheme going around here these days.. if you can stay out of jail, that is. Or until the interstate grifting competition finally catches up with Louisiana which could start happening any day now.

In the meantime we need to get these ideas up and available for immediate financing.

1) Name That Decibel.  Contestants walk the first eight blocks of Bourbon Street and guess the loudness at which they are hearing various house bands perform Don't Stop Believin' along the way.  Hosted by Drew Ward.

2) Amazing Race Uptown Teams have to perform a variety of tasks that require them to traverse the many Uptown construction zones. The degree of difficulty increases as afternoon thunderstorms begin to flood the side street detours.

Points may be awarded for ingenuity. For example last weekend our familiar four year old neighborhood sinkhole was finally filled in.



As you can probably tell, this wasn't accomplished through any official city agency. Instead, in keeping with the NOLA hustlin' tradition of improvisation, a free acting community fellow arrived and shoveled dirt into it from the back of an El Camino.



I'm not sure what's next for the sinkhole.  I've thought about putting up a Maypole there but Menckles  has already planted some sunflower seeds so we'll have to wait to see if those come in before anything else happens.

3) Project Fairgrounds Tim Gunn stands at the gate and scrutinizes Jazzfest attendees' outfits for controversial themes.

On Saturday (April 26), Greenpeace flew a banner over the New Orleans Jazz Fest with a message aimed at Shell, the festival's sponsor: "Love Jazz Fest; Hate Oil Spills." For 30 minutes, until several NOPD officers escorted the Greenpeace members out, the protest took place inside the gates.

Extra points deducted for protesters who don't even take the time to match their complaint to the venue.

The group passed out paper fans and post cards criticizing Shell's efforts to drill in the arctic. Two of them held Jazz Fest-style poles that featured half a polar bear's face and half of Shell's logo with a devil's horn added.

A dying Louisiana coastline and its inhabitants  might find that a little tacky.

Any contestant singled out by Gunn will be given a sun hat, Hawaiian shirt, and sandals to wear for the rest of the day.

4) Park That Bike Simple concept.  Much harder than you may think, though.



So those are my TV hustles. If you're in for financing any of these let me know and I'll get you in touch with my agent Kevin Houser.

Sinkhole hungry

So this is still happening.

BAYOU CORNE, La. —Parish officials say the 29-acre sinkhole in Assumption Parish swallowed six cypress trees Wednesday and had its first deep burp of gas and fluid since late August.

The Advocate reports the event comes nearly two weeks after lead scientists investigating the sinkhole for state regulators said the hole seemed to be on the path to stabilizing.

Those Christmas trees really do start to fall apart after Carnival begins

Celebration In the Sinkhole December 15 2013



Desolation of the Sinkhole January 10 2014



Maybe the recent freeze is to blame. But I'd never rule out foul play.  Has anyone seen Harvey Updyke lately?  It's difficult to see the fact that we began the week talking about TP in trees and ended it with a dead tree as some sort of coincidence.

Seasons change, I guess.

Stock footage

Eventually we'll get enough video of the Texas Brine sinkhole swallowing whole trees to fill a whole decade's worth of low budget horror movies.  So another big win for Hollywood South, there.

"Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem"

I'm not actually trying to pile on poor Charles Brown here. He was responsible for the moment in Sunday's game where even the more level headed Saints fans began to lose hope.

Brown in the second quarter negated an 8-yard TD catch by Lance Moore with an illegal-use-of-hands penalty. Kicker Garrett Hartley subsequently tried a 36-yard field goal, but it was blocked by defensive tackle Michael Brockers with 2 seconds left in the half, giving St. Louis a 24-3 halftime lead.

But it's silly to pin that stinker performance on Brown alone.  Besides, Sean Payton has done enough picking on him already.

"I saw enough, period," Payton said. "It was enough penalties, pressures, sacks. It was enough. At some point you can’t just keep watching it."

Good grief.

Saints fans should have seen this coming when they opened up their morning internet devices and pointed them at Jeff Duncan's column.  Duncan was arguing (some say backhandedly)  in favor of Coach Of The Year consideration for Payton partially because of his work with telling Charles Brown not to hold people.

This attention to detail manifests itself in an accountability that was noticeably missing a year ago. Remember that 12 men on the field infraction Patrick Robinson drew last season when he failed to hustle to the sideline? There's no mental slippage this season with the hyper-intense Payton stalking the sidelines at practice and games.

When Charles Brown was called for six holding penalties in the Saints' first eight games Payton addressed it. Brown hasn't had a holding call since.

Guess that whole losing Patrick Robinson for the year to injury is a bonus stroke of coaching genius, right?  But, as long as Brown is suiting up each week, these little issues can still pop up. 

Anyway, it took a while for the press to catch up with Brown. He wasn't in the mood to talk in the locker room, but he did have this to say later while in the course of holiday preparations.



Rats.

The good news is there will still be more football.  It would be ungrateful for Saints fans to fail to recognize 10 wins with a chance for much better as anything other than a blessing... not exactly a Christmas miracle or anything, but it's important not to take these seasons for granted. These are still the good times.  

The Saints have one more opportunity to lay this increasingly vexing "can't win on the road" trope to rest and claim the division in the process.  And even if they don't there will be plenty to talk about with a difficult trip to the playoffs ahead of them.

Meanwhile, there's the matter of improving on Charles Brown's Christmas display.

In that spirit, we present Celebration In The Sinkhole 2013. This year's theme: "Dreaming Of A Safety Orange Christmas"



Like the Saints, in 2013, this sinkhole isn't always pretty. But it's still a pretty neat thing to look at.

Linus Van Pelt: I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.

Happy Halloween

Still not sure what to do about Ye Olde Spooky Sinkhole. Maybe if the bush growing out of it were shaped like a C or an I they'd send someone out to hack it away. Meanwhile it continues to ensnare lost souls. We captured this on video a couple of weeks ago. Here it is again just because.

They call that a sinkhole?

French Quarter sinkhole frustrates neighbors. Action Report 6pm. pic.twitter.com/MplsgAAT1y
— Bill Capo (@BillCapo) October 17, 2013

I don't think they know what they're talking about. This is a sinkhole.



And actually that photo is from last year. Tomorrow afternoon I need to get out and update the set.

Apparently there's money in the capital budget for street repairs so I'm thinking every moment with our three-year old neighborhood crater is precious. That reminds me. The Holidays are coming.  Time to start working on a new display.



Meanwhile... "Sinkhole Frustrates Neighbors"

BAYOU CORNE, LA (WAFB) - Life in the community of Bayou Corne has been anything but normal since a giant sinkhole opened up. One official says the surface of the sinkhole could double in size. Right now, it is at 26 acres.

Umm....

So this seems bad.

A nuclear expert has told the BBC that he believes the current water leaks at Fukushima are much worse than the authorities have stated. 

Mycle Schneider is an independent consultant who has previously advised the French and German governments.

He says water is leaking out all over the site and there are no accurate figures for radiation levels.
Meanwhile the chairman of Japan's nuclear authority said that he feared there would be further leaks.

The ongoing problems at the Fukushima plant increased in recent days when the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) admitted that around 300 tonnes of highly radioactive water had leaked from a storage tank on the site.

 Meanwhile, in other slow-motion disaster news

Assumption Parish officials on Wednesday released a video showing the sinkhole swallowing several trees in a matter of seconds.

The video, posted on the city's blog, is described a "slough in" that happened around 7:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Sinking feelings

National headlines this morning:

Front page of today's USA Today:

In the past eight decades, Louisiana has lost 1,880 square miles of coastal marshes, or an area about the size of Manhattan every year. With another hurricane season upon us, it is land that Louisiana and the nation can ill afford to lose. The same threat of lost barrier islands and wetlands stalks more than half of the coastal properties of the continental United States, extending from Maine to Texas. But here in southeastern Louisiana, it's at its worst.

The sub-head adds insult to injury by throwing in a gratuitous line about "climate change-spiced gumbo." Try not to think about that.

Also here's a Mother Jones feature on Bayou Corne:

Bayou Corne is the biggest ongoing industrial disaster in the United States you haven't heard of. In addition to creating a massive sinkhole, it has unearthed an uncomfortable truth: Modern mining and drilling techniques are disturbing the geological order in ways that scientists still don't fully understand. Humans have been extracting natural resources from the earth since the dawn of mankind, but never before at the rate and magnitude of today's petrochemical industry. And the side effects are becoming clear.

And finally there's this local headline:

New Orleans Saints lose receiver Joe Morgan, defensive lineman Kenyon Coleman for season

Whose $80 million?

So-called economic impact numbers are basically useless as anything besides PR tools. Even if the advertised figures are not exaggerated (which they almost certainly are) all they tell us is how much money was theoretically put into motion by a specific event without regard to where any of it ended up.

We can estimate the volume of water and sediment carried by the Mississippi River through South Louisiana.  But if we are indifferent to how that load is dispersed across the delta, then how does that help us rebuild the deteriorating coastline? 

The same problem applies to the supposed economic impact of filming. 

How is a site awarded and thereby closed? How do they estimate the $80 million, and does the production achieve this estimate?

How are uniformed NOPD officers compensated? Who are the 600 locals employed by a film featuring Gary Oldman?

With New Orleans increasingly the backdrop for big films, we would all benefit from a line-by-line analysis of the expenditures credited to a single one of these productions.

If the state issues a tax credit, can the city also — simply for the sake of study — collect receipts and explain the film’s impact against the impact on residents in terms of resources and time diverted?

That's from a letter to The Advocate by Brian Boyles. He's referring specifically to work downtown on the new "Planet Of The Apes" movie.  Here's a sorry phone pic of the production blocking my progress up Common Street last week.



And here's another one I took this morning of Carondelet Street.



I assume this is the same production because they've dressed up the street to look all overgrown and decayed the way the scene downtown was constructed.  Of course, that doesn't take all that much work around here where signs of decay and neglect exist in abundance.  Had they just scooted a few blocks down the street, for example, our beloved three year old overgrown sinkhole was already prepared for its close-up.