Latest Mississippi River Delta News: August 28, 2015

Latest Mississippi River Delta News: August 28, 2015

Katrina Spawns a Decade of Flood Protection Design and Construction
(Mentions MRD Coalition)
By Pam Radtke Russell, Engineering News-Record. August 25, 2015.
That buffering of the coastline is part of a “multiple lines of defense” strategy being promoted by a “Restore the Delta” coalition that is pushing to restore the coast for environmental reasons and to give the region more protection from hurricanes. (Read More)

Designing the Resilient Coast of the Future
(Mentions EDF, Changing Course)
By Kate Ascher & David Ven Der Leer
Such remarkably complex challenges require a process that develops multiple approaches, disciplines and a toolkit of solutions to guide the region’s future. In 2013, the international environmental nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, 120-year-old design competition organizer,Van Alen Institute, and multidisciplinary consulting engineering firm, BuroHappold Engineering, launched the international design competition Changing Course, bringing together some of the world’s leading engineers, coastal scientists, planners, and designers to tackle a crucial question raised by the state of Louisiana’s master planning process: how to restore and maximize the Mississippi River’s land-building capacities while maintaining a world-class navigation system and supporting and respecting the communities, industries and peoples of the coast. (Read More)  

Swallowed By The Sea
(Mentions EDF)
By Kris Allred, WSAV-TV
Experts with the Environmental Defense Fund say the area needs a very aggressive restoration program. Since the early 1990s, the government has spent billions on coastal works to slow the land loss. There’s been some success, but the ultimately the Gulf wins. Scientists have even tuned to the Netherlands for advice. It’s here where they have protected themselves from the sea with a network of dunes and floodgates. Only problem is, the Netherlands deal with a much milder sea. Hurricanes aren’t an issue. (Read More)

Decade after Katrina, efforts aim to restore Louisiana coast
(Features Steve Cochran)
By Randy Lee Lofts, Reposted in Hawaii Star Advertiser
Cochran, however, has detected a cooling of such recriminations in favor of work on common goals. He said he’s found big lessons that might apply anywhere big challenges involving humanity and nature appear. Look long term, he said. Use nature’s power as much as bricks and mortar. Learn to live with water instead of against it.

Ten years after Katrina, cities near New Orleans struggle with an eroding coast
(features Doug Meffert, NAS, Theryn Henkel, LPBF)
By Fusion’s America with Jorge Ramos
Since the storm hit ten years ago, 100 square miles of wetlands have vanished. Residents of coastal towns such as Dulac are worried for its future as the effects of Katrina continue to be felt.(Read More)

Will New Orleans Survive the Next Katrina? (Video)
features Doug Meffert, NAS
By Tim McDonnell, Grist August 26, 2015
Before the storm, hurricane protection and coastal restoration were treated as separate, or ever-competing, interests. Now, they’re one and the same.”Without Katrina, this wouldn’t be happening,” Dupre says. “We’ve gone from being the laughingstock to the model for the rest of the country.” (Read More)

New Orleans still rebuilding 10 years after Hurricane Katrina
(features Doug Meffert, NAS)
By Fox 4 News – Kansas City
Doug Meffert with the Audubon Society shared what New Orleans has been doing and learned since Hurricane Katrina ripped through and destroyed portions of the city. Meffert also shared what the future of Louisiana looks as crews continue to rebuild the Gulf Coast. (Read More)

A Coastal Interview 10 Years After Katrina
(features Doug Meffert, NAS)
By KENS-5 CBS – San Antonio
Doug Meffert interviewed on coastal restoration efforts in Louisiana ahead of the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.. (Read More)

Related News:

Ten Years After Katrina, Here’s What’s Happening to Louisiana’s Coastline
(By Peter Moskowitz, Vice News)
It’s been ten years since Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast, crippling New Orleans and highlighting America’s vulnerability to natural disaster. In the aftermath, a central question has been whether New Orleans — and other areas along the coast — can be rebuilt better, stronger, and more equitably. But with coastal development swallowing up wetlands, canal dredging by oil and gas companies ruining coastlines, and global warming pushing up sea levels, Gulf Coast residents are wondering whether the land on which they live will continue to exist at all. (Read More)

Judge: Corps must pay full $3 billion cost of restoring MR-GO wetlands
(By Mark Schleifstein, Times Picayune)
The Army Corps of Engineers must pay the full $3 billion cost of restoring wetlands destroyed by the agency’s improper construction and maintenance of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a federal judge in New Orleans ruled Thursday (Aug. 27).(Read More)

New Orleans: The Hub of Water Management Innovation?
(By Nihal Shrinath and Allison Plyer, Stanford Social Innovation Review)
What may come as a surprise, however, is that New Orleans—a city that knows the destructive power of storm water better than any other—may just turn out to be the hub of water management innovation.(Read More)

In New Orleans, Waiting Out an Unfortunate Anniversary
(By Pam Radtke Russell, CQ Roll Call)
“But New Orleans’ go cup, as one engineer recently told me, is half full.While we, as New Orleanians, would prefer to have one filled to the rim, the system we have is better than what Miami, Boston, or even Washington, D.C., has.” (Read More)

The Katrina oil spill disaster: A harbinger for the Atlantic Coast?
(By Sue Sturgis, The Institute for Southern Studies: Facing South)
“When Hurricane Katrina hit the U.S. Gulf Coast 10 years ago, it set off a disaster of many parts — and one of those parts was an oil spill catastrophe. In fact, Katrina turned out to be the worst U.S. oil spill disaster since the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska. The storm resulted in an estimated 8 million gallons of oil spilled onto the ground and into waterways from Louisiana to Alabama. Both of those incidents have since been surpassed by the 2010 BP spill in the Gulf, which affected some of the same areas as the Katrina spill.” (Read More)

The Katrina Disaster That Hasn’t Ended
(By Michael Grunwald, Politico)
“A decade later, the engineering problems have been addressed with a new state-of-the-art flood protection system around the city, and the Big Easy is much safer. The president was right to highlight the city’s impressive physical and economic recovery today, as well as the persistent challenges faced by low-income African-Americans in the Lower Ninth Ward where he spoke. But it should not be forgotten that Washington’s skewed priorities left the Lower Ninth underwater—and those priorities are still out of whack.” (Read More)