EDITORIAL: Louisiana's stick [moratorium on new offshore leases]

New Orleans Times-Picayune ^ | February 5, 2005 | Editorial

[CobaltBlue]

Louisiana's leaders have made a strong case for getting a larger, fairer share of offshore oil royalties for the state; so far, though, reason and persuasion haven't worked with Congress or the Bush administration.

But Louisiana also has a stick -- the power to oppose the sale of new offshore oil leases -- and Gov. Blanco made the right move by showing that she might use it.

She threatened, in a letter to the Minerals Management Service, to withhold support for an August sale unless Louisiana gets a more substantial piece of the revenue. And she makes the crucial link: Louisiana can't continue to support an industry that takes a real toll on the state's coastline without making sure that its needs are met.

"It is abundantly clear that allowing development to occur where inadequate provisions are made for the protection of that development is irresponsible," she wrote.

That's entirely reasonable. It's also good strategy. Now is the right time to remind Congress and the White House that Louisiana could be less cooperative in the future.

[dirtboy]

And your solution would be to build on land already 10 feet below sea level so that in two decades you are no longer 10 feet below sea level but are now 15 feet below sea level. Subsidence is not stopping.

Uh, I am critizing the proposed fill solution.

[CobaltBlue]

Hurricanes don't get stronger over marshland. They get stronger due to increase in heat, increase in low pressure. Friction from land slows them down, chews them up.

We won't lecture you about blizzards, and please don't lecture us about hurricanes.

[FreedomCalls]

I have a far superior home to the one Katrina destroyed and Katrina is paying the mortgage on it. Send us another storm and I'll retire in a couple years. I am making a mint off of this storm.

Yet you want the rest of us to pay for rebuilding your area. Sheesh.

[dirtboy]

Hurricanes don't get stronger over marshland. They get stronger due to increase in heat, increase in low pressure. Friction from land slows them down, chews them up.

Once again, Wilma got stronger over Florida, so that is not always true. I've followed this hurricane season in great detail.

And the track of the eye kept the strong surge offshore - the right eyewall never got entirely over land until it hit Mississippi. The marshland debate is much more relevant to Rita's path.

[CobaltBlue]

There's no place to move the refineries and the petrochemical plants that will get them away from hurricanes, cher.

[Jacquerie]

This state desperately needs a substantial, guaranteed source of money to restore eroded marshes and rebuild shattered barrier islands.

Does anyone really believe that the extra funds would go to marsh and barrier isle restoration?

[FreedomCalls]

If you think oil prices went up due to Katrina, that's a tiny fraction of what they'd do if every refinery and every petrochemical plant had to shut down because they didn't have running water, and the river silted up so no shipping.

Build new ones where the new outlet is. It's not impossible.

[FreedomCalls]

sooner or later that's gonna happen against our will - so we should start preparing for that day now. The debate over NOLA will become absolutely moot the day the Mississippi pushes aside Old River Control. Best we start getting ready for it now.

I agree 100%.

[FreedomCalls]

Uh, I am critizing the proposed fill solution.

My solution is to put the levees back up, fill in everything below sea level and forbid any building on the fill area. That way there will be no flooding since it is all above sea level, subsidence won't matter since there will be no building on it, and if needed, it can be replenished with more dirt. New Orleans becomes known for it's parks and that it can no longer flood.

[CajunConservative]

Rita whacked the oil industry from East Texas to the area just west of where Katrina hit.

[CobaltBlue]

Forbidding rebuilding in the lowest areas is not a bad idea -- but the property owners would be entitled to fair market value for their property.

[dirtboy]

There's no place to move the refineries and the petrochemical plants that will get them away from hurricanes, cher.

Uh, I was talking about the need to address the inevitability of the Mississippi going down the Atchafalaya. And you post a map of refineries and talk about hurricane force winds? I wasn't even talking about that subject.

Louisiana's refineries bounced back pretty quickly from Katrina and Rita.

But any industrial site below Old River will be severely affected when the Mississippi jumps. Methinks that is extremely critical in the debate here.

[CajunConservative]

Do you know how expensive that is?

[sportutegrl]

Interesting question. As a factual matter, who owns the leases, and how long are they good for?

As I understand it, the Federal Government gets the royalties. Louisiana actually has a valid point, here. The feds have been selling oil and gas leases offshore and pocketing the money for years.

[dirtboy]

but the property owners would be entitled to fair market value for their property.

And I don't have a problem with a buyout program if it moves people to higher ground. I feel the same way about the Mississippi coast - if someone wants a federal buyout, it needs a requirement that they move inland past the areas affected by Katrina's surge. If they refuse to move inland, then rebuilding will have to be on their own dime, because the American taxpayer should not be exposed to the risk more than once.

My problem with the Baily bill is that it expects to repackage mcuh the land in question for redevelopment - when most of that land probably should not be redeveloped. So any accounting of the true costs of the bill must take that into consideration.

[NickFlooding]

I totally agree that is how the delta and wet lands were formed over thousands of years and would arrest further losses.

Only two problems I can see with doing that.
1. It will take thousands of years to undo the damage of the last hundred years.
2. People up north want the deep channels at the mouth of the Mississippi so the ships can bring them petroleum from their stable trading partners of Venezuela and the Middle East while sending out their Mid Western grains.

[CobaltBlue]

Good old Leander.

[dirtboy]

Do you know how expensive that is?

Do you realize what will happen to NOLA and the industries around it when the Mississippi does jump?

We are talking a massive rebuilding project in your state given the current state post-Katrina and post-Rita. If we are gonna spend that much money, let's rebuild ONCE to address all of the major natural hazards, even if that costs more money in the short term. If we rebuild NOLA in place with Cat 5 levees, that offers no assistance to the Mississippi jumping channels -so all that money would be wasted. So why don't we look ahead and spend the money to build a canal and make a new port, so when the river does jump channels, we are prepared for it?

[CobaltBlue]

My favorite solution -- if we're talking "pie in the sky" -- convert to biodiesel from soybeans, thinned with ethanol.

[dirtboy]

2. People up north want the deep channels at the mouth of the Mississippi so the ships can bring them petroleum from their stable trading partners of Venezuela and the Middle East while sending out their Mid Western grains.

And that's why I think this country needs to commit to making a deep-water canal west of the Atchafalaya and a port above Old River Control. So we're ready for the day when the main river channel jumps. And then the levees below NOLA can be removed to allow the river to re-sediment below that point.