Posted on 09/23/2006 8:22:42 AM PDT by UpTurn
Scientists have long said the only way to restore Louisianas vanishing wetlands is to undo the elaborate levee system that controls the Mississippi River, not with the small projects that have been tried here and there, but with a massive diversion that would send the muddy river flooding wholesale into the states sediment-starved marshes.
And most of them have long dismissed the idea as impractical, unaffordable and lethal to the regions economy. Now, they are reconsidering. In fact, when a group of researchers convened last April to consider the fate of the Louisiana coast, their recommendation was unanimous: divert the river.
Far from rejecting the idea, state officials have embraced it, motivated not just by the lessons of Hurricane Katrina but also by growing fears that global climate change will bring rising seas, accelerating land loss and worse weather.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
It would be less expensive to move New Orleans north, out of the flood plain, restore the natural course of the Mississippi (get rid if the levees) where it will then rebuild the sandy marshlands (they act as a wind and water break from Hurricane-fed ocean surges); than it would be to continue to try to "protect" New Orleans.
If you additionally consider what may become of the current, and very natural, warming climate trend, the rise of the Gulf waters and the Mississippi delta just might eventually swamp any levee system there.
Maybe it is time for some radical ideas.
I do like the diversion at empire idea. A couple of town would have to be sacrificed but it looks like the best solution. It seems that dredging on a occasional basis whereever the main channel go by nature would solve the Navigation problem
"I do like the diversion at empire idea."
Empire???
What am I missing?
Empire, Louisiana. It's a little town way down there.
Completely at odds with
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1706724/posts
Katrina, Rita Actually Helped Wetlands, Study Says
Thanks. My Lousiana geography is not that good and I skipped over alot of little details in the article.
Why not both?
TT
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