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  Best article on Katrina & Corps yet

  As a displaced Katrina person who lived at the foot of one of these rotten corps levees in New Orleans, I was surprised to find this article on the Levees.org site, and I must say it is the best overview of the issues I've seen on the issue of Corps (or government as a whole) liability.  Note that the mainstream media won't touch this issue of Corps or government liability with a 10-foot pole, though the city has just slapped a $77 BILLION damages claim on the Corps of Engineers.

  This author has analyzed the situation correctly.
  If the citizens of New Orleans had been informed that our levees were engineered to be only suitable for cows, then forced to sign a waiver before purchasing property within the levee system, only THEN would I say that this is not a liability issue.

  However, it is our tax money (as well as yours) that pays for Corps pork all over our blessed nation, as so aptly pointed out by the writer.  And we are blissfully ignorant of how bad it really all is.  If you think this is only about New Orleans, google Sacramento levees and you'll find out just how precarious our flood control situation is ALL OVER this country.

  New Orleanians were not given a chance to know that their flood protection projects were shi**y.  Now we know.  And people, including my former neighbors, are still doggedly rebuilding on coastal and low lands (the propensity for change is not among New Orleanians' best attributes -- but it sure makes for good food, architecture and music!).  The feds wouldn't continue to subsidize this stupid development with cheap insurance it would never happen -- more rottenness with your tax money.  

  Want more evidence?  Look into the Corps' soil sampling on the New Orleans levees.  You may come away concluding that the engineers actually perpetrated fraud to make the project fit the budget, by making the soils look far stronger than they actually are and thereby allowing the levees to be weaker than they needed to be in reality. And the wheel of government bureaucracy grinds on.  

  So though some of you passionately say the blame ultimately lies at Congress' feet; the truth is that Congress only knows what the Corps tells them, and like any organism, the Corps is primarily interested in self-preservation.  It is the entire pork-barrel funded system that is "rotten to the corps" as the author so aptly title the article.

  Thank you for the well-written article!On The Army Corps of Engineers is the real culprit behind New Orleans' devastation posted 2 years, 8 months ago 9 Responses