[StBernard] Point of View by Ron Chapman

[Westley Annis]

The MRGO exists because the the State of Louisiana, the Port of New Orleans
(a State agency), our congressional delegation, the shipping industry, and
certain well-connected business interests WANT IT OPEN. The Corps of
Engineers is only the vehicle they use to keep it open and maintained. 
I can't believe that after all the articles that Ed Doody has written, and
all the speeches and presentations both Ed and I have made on this issue,
that Ron Chapman and apparently many others still don't get it. This is
particularly distressing because Ron participated in many of our
presentations. 
 
 
LISTEN !!!!!!!!!! The MRGO exists only because the Port of New Orleans
serves as it's the local sponsor.  Without the Port as the local sponsor the
MRGO would be closed. If the Port and the State and the shipping interests
and our congressional delegation wanted it closed today, it would be closed.
BUT THEY WANT IT OPEN. Not the Corps of Engineers. The Corps only does their
bidding.
 
As Ed and I have said many times, the State of Louisiana, the Port of New
Orleans and our congressional delegation made the decision a long time ago
to put the shipping interests ahead of the safety of the people of St.
Bernard, Orleans and Plaquemines Parishes. Now we have the result. People
have died, business, homes and lives have been destroyed so the Port can
continue to bring a few ships a month to the Inner Harbor, to do business
which could be done on the Mississippi River instead. Not to mention the
fact that over 40,000 acres of our coastal marshlands have been destroyed
which weakens our defenses against storm surge.
 
The Corps is just a willing participant, an accomplice, not the responsible
party.
 
John P. Laguens
 
 
    
-----Original Message-----
From: Westley Annis <westley at da-parish.com>
To: stbernard at da-parish.com
Sent: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 23:12:58 -0500
Subject: [StBernard] Point of View by Ron Chapman


This article along with the picture referenced in the article is available
at these two URL's:
http://tinyurl.com/abrrb
http://www.da-parish.com/2005/09/point-of-view-by-ron-chapman.html

________________________________

Point of View
St Bernard Voice
By
Ron Chapman

It's not like we didn't warn them!

In 1956 the Federal government devised a plant to construct a 76 mile short
cut from the back of New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico.  This would prevent
maritime traffic from having to follow the circuitous route against the
current of the Mississippi River to the Port of New Orleans.  At that time
it was called the "Tidewater Channel".  Today we call it the Mississippi
River Gulf Outlet (MRGO).

Edwin Roy, editor of the St. Bernard Voice, ran a series of front-page
articles denouncing the plan.  He apply entitled his series "Is St. Bernard
Doomed".   How prophetic of him.  He complained about the project and laid
out just how devastating it would prove to be for fisheries, trapping, and
land loss.  He also raised concerns about its threat to the community from
tidal surges.  

What is most interesting in his articles from November 1957 is Mr. Roy's
concerns about the impact of "locks for the Tidewater Channel [are]
constructed at or near Meraux."  LOCKS????  What happened to those locks?
Why weren't they built?    Mr. Roy admonished St. Bernard Residents to
".wake up and fight for survival."

It has been 48 years and since that time numerous other articles and series
have been published in St. Bernard Parish's official journal, the St.
Bernard Voice, raising concerns about this federal ditch.  Many knew the
threat.   They attempted for the past 48 years to have their voices heard.
We knew that the MRGO would one day kill our community. It was a dagger
pointed at the heart of those living east of the Industrial Canal.

For years Point of View, (a St. Bernard Voice editorial column), has warned
about the dangers.  Lectures as a part of the Nunez Community College
History Lecture Series have exposed the problems, the threat has been
brought up at public meetings with the Army Corps of Engineers, and a series
of columns by engineer Ed Doody have all sought to alert authorities of the
dangers and warn citizens that their lives were in peril.  The feds did
nothing but procrastinate!

What we feared most has now happened!  Our community is destroyed and many
people have died because of MRGO!

When completed in 1964, the MRGO was 500 feet wide and was to have locks at
Meraux.  Today, the MRGO is nearly 3,000 feet wide, has no locks (they were
never constructed!), and has destroyed 40,000 acres of cypress swamp that
had traditionally provided an effective natural barrier to storm surges.  

The photograph (attached) taken on the day of the storm from the Entergy
Plant near the "Green Bridge" (I-510) proves that a storm surge coming up
the MRGO accounted for the damage visited on our community and the lower 9th
ward.  The communities below the Industrial Canal are victims of
short-sighted federal engineering, failure on the part of authorities to
heed the warnings coming from many and varied sources, and persistent
negligence on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers to address a known
problem.

Do you need proof?   Reports indicate that the Corps is already planning to
re-dredge MRGO after the Katrina travesty.  If this is true, then the
failure of the federal government to accept proof of the canal's destructive
force is obvious.  Instead of planning to close it because circumstances
have proven critics right, the Corps seeks to deepen and reopen it for
traffic as if nothing happened.  How sad is that?

The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet (MRGO) has been and always will be a
threat to the Greater New Orleans area.  It has cost the people of the lower
9th Ward, New Orleans East, and St. Bernard Parish their homes, livelihoods,
and their lives.  Responsibility for this rests entirely on the shoulders of
a federal government and its agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, who
persistently refused to heed the warnings of those who knew the threat and
reported same.  That makes them responsible and culpable for the damages to
property and loss of life visited on these communities by hurricane Katrina.

The question now is.what will they do about it????

--
Posted by Westley to da-parish Blogs
<http://www.da-parish.com/2005/09/point-of-view-by-ron-chapman.html>  at
9/19/2005 11:05:08 PM 
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