Who are we trying to sustain?

Seems like the river is pretty much always in flood this time of year now.

The Army Corps of Engineers is considering opening the Bonnet Carre Spillway for a second time this year, with the river again set to rise to 16.9 feet in New Orleans on May 11. It would be the first time the spillway was opened twice in the same calendar year since it was completed in 1931. While the official flood stage at the Carrollton Gage in New Orleans is 17 feet, floodwalls and levees in the New Orleans area protect from water heights of at least 20 feet.

That's probably bad. Maybe just leave the thing open for a few months.

While they're at it, maybe it's time to get some of these lower river diversions up and running while they still might do some... well I hesitate to say some good since we're probably past that point but, you know. 

One of the embarrassing facts of American political life is that most of us only pay attention when the debate is about so-called “kitchen table issues.” Our lives are so busy and hectic, researchers claim, we don’t get involved at the ballot box until a topic might cost us money or safety.

That’s one of the excuses given to explain why so many south Louisiana voters continue to send people like Steve Scalise, Clay Higgins and Garret Graves back to Washington even as those congressmen vote against their constituents’ best interests by steadfastly fighting regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The science may show those pollutants are the main driver of rising seas that will drown much of the state’s bottom third within 40 to 50 years, but that seems like a long way off, these politicians say. No need to pay for it now. You’re still safe. And maybe it won’t happen!

Well, maybe the new storm surge risk maps issued by the National Hurricane Center last week will finally bring this issue to your kitchen table. 

Bob Marshall is correct to call out Louisiana's congressional delegation for its dismissal of the threat climate change poses to the majority of their constituents.  But he'd be kidding himself if he actually believes the new flood maps will change anyone's position. At the most all they're likely to do is tweak the marketing pitch for continuing the same destructive policies.  Here is a NYT article about some Republicans who are doing just that, in fact. Among them is LA Congressman Garret Graves.

In almost all of the cases in which conservative politicians are cautiously staking out territory on climate change, they still do not acknowledge the extent of man’s responsibility for causing it. Putting a price on emitting carbon into the atmosphere is verboten. And they insist solutions do not need to include eliminating or even curbing the use of oil, coal and other dirty energy sources primarily responsible for heating the planet.

“If we can find strategies that allow us to reduce emissions while continuing to use fossil fuels, I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing,” Mr. Graves said in a recent interview.

See we gotta figure out how to compromise and balance between having a coast and supporting the industry that has ripped it to pieces. Simple. Sensible sounding.  The stuff of editorial page legend. 

Of course, here is what that looks like in real life.

Today, there is a proposal to place a massive oil terminal – the Plaquemines Liquids Terminal – on the Mississippi River directly in the footprint of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion. This terminal would provide a connection from a not-yet-built oil pipeline to large tankers on the river, storing as much as 20 million barrels of oil on site for loading onto these ships directly upriver of the intake structure of the diversion.

What could go wrong? Unfortunately, a lot. First, the terminal and the ships using it will decrease the land-building power of the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion, as the tankers block sediment from being captured by the diversion, resulting in less land. In effect, we’ll be making a $1.4 billion project investment far less effective than it could be.

Given the importance and urgency of coastal restoration and protection, that in itself would seem to make this a very bad idea.

Beyond that, virtually any spill, however small or large, will risk fouling the wetlands that are being created and sustained by the diversion. At a time when our state is losing its wetland buffer and wildlife habitat faster than anywhere else on Earth, why would we allow something to compromise or corrupt the wetlands that remain? In a post BP world, why would we take the risk of a catastrophic failure that could ruin the very effort we need to sustain ourselves here?

I suppose that last question is rhetorical. As we well know by now none of this is about choosing to "sustain ourselves" in South Louisiana because there is no "ourselves" to sustain.  There are, instead, the competing interests of varies "selves" to consider. And some of those are more valuable than others.