[StBernard] Louisiana Recovery Authority executive director asks 60 minutes to hold story

[Westley Annis]

Saturday, November 19, 2005

Louisiana Recovery Authority Executive Director Andy Kopplin today asked CBS
News to hold its proposed story on possible future elevation loss in the
City of New Orleans unless it is balanced with interviews with "credible
scientists whose work on coastal land loss in Louisiana and across the world
has been peer reviewed by academic experts and which represents first rate
and informed science."
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/18/60minutes/main1056304.shtml  ) 

"The people of New Orleans and South Louisiana face some extraordinarily
difficult personal choices at this time," Kopplin wrote.  "I would ask that
you please not complicate their lives further by airing information that is
inaccurate and unbalanced as is being suggested from the "teaser" that has
been posted."

Below is the text of Kopplin's letter, as well as letters to producers at
CBS news from Drs. Donald Boesch and Robert Twilley, as well as contact
information for other geologists who are familiar with Louisiana's coastal
wetlands and land loss issues.  Please contact us if you would like to
interview any of these scientists.

###

November 19, 2005

Dear Mr. Pelley: 

I am Executive Director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.  I believe that
Denise Bottcher, Press Secretary for Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, has
also attempted to reach you by telephone. 

We are very concerned about the preview of your story on New Orleans' future
posted on the 60 Minutes website and hope it is not an accurate reflection
of your work.  I have copied below letters from Dr. Donald Boesch and Dr.
Robert Twilley, scientists who have actually studied Louisiana's coast and
our land loss issues and who voice strong criticism of the perspective which
was quoted in these postings.  

We know of many scientists and engineers like Drs. Boesch and Twilley who
have spent considerable parts of their careers becoming experts in
addressing coastal land loss in Louisiana and who disagree fundamentally
with Prof. Kusky's purported comments.  If, in fact, the previews are
accurate, then I cannot request strongly enough that you delay the airing of
your story and immediately get in contact with some of these scientists in
order to provide your viewers with scientific objectivity as well as balance
in your report.  We would be more than happy to supply names of credible
scientists whose work on coastal land loss in Louisiana and across the world
has been peer reviewed by academic experts and which represents first rate
and informed science.  I have attached the contacts and web pages for Dr.
Greg Stone and Dr. Denise Reed, two Louisiana university geologists who are
also experts in the field.  There are many more expe! rts with whom we could
put you in contact.

The people of New Orleans and South Louisiana face some extraordinarily
difficult personal choices at this time.  I would ask that you please not
complicate their lives further by airing information that is inaccurate and
unbalanced as is being suggested from the "teaser" that has been posted.  

Finally, please pardon my request if the information from the website is not
accurate or representative of your story.  If, however, Prof. Kusky's claims
are not offset by interviews with credible scientists who have actually done
extensive work on the subject matter, I strongly urge you to delay airing
your story until the viewpoints of those scientists can be included.

Thank you for your attention to this request, and please contact us next
time you are working on a story about the challenges of rebuilding New
Orleans and Coastal Louisiana. 

Sincerely,

Andy Kopplin 
Executive Director
Louisiana Recovery Authority

###

(Text of Dr. Donald F. Boesch's letter) 



Dear producer,

I am dismayed by the advance report (http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
) on the scheduled story on sinking of New Orleans which apparently is based
on the perspectives of "a natural disaster expert" (so called on your
website), Prof. Tim Kusky of St. Louis University.  

I have spent a career (www.umces.edu/president  ) working on coastal
environmental issues around the country, including Louisiana, and have
served on numerous scientific advisory boards of the National Academy of
Sciences, federal agencies, and professional societies.  To boot, I am a
native of New Orleans and know a fair amount about the place, its past and
future environmental conditons. I led the US National Assessment on the
effects of climate change on coastal environments, so k! now full well the
risks we face from sea-level rise, and am currently co-chairing a national
group of experts on post-Katrina science being convened by the American
Geophysical Union.  Until now, I have never heard of Prof. Kusky.  

Quick research reveals that Prof. Kusky's expertise is in ophiolites, rock
sequences that formed on the oceanic edge of tectonic plates, in the Archean
eon about 3 billion years ago.  Google Scholar turns up no publications by
him on modern geological processes or natural disaster planning.  I did
discover a September op-ed in the Boston Globe
(http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/25
/time_to_move_to_higher_ground/  ) suggesting it is time for New Orleaneans
to move out of the city, which is replete with serious errors of fact and
logic.  In particular, one cannot extrapolate past land sinking rates (that
are based on 20th century soil dewatering rather than tectonic subsidence)
into the future. Furthermore, the bed of the lower Mississippi River is
eroding into underlying deposits and not rising above its flood plains as is
the Yellow River, as he suggests.  The op-ed reads like an undergraduate
paper--a little bit of truth but with a lot of important information missing
and not much deep thinking.  And, I wouldn't grade it highly.

The disaster of Katrina is sad in so many respects.  One of those for me as
a scientist is the proliferation of self-proclaimed experts who, either to
seek attention or push their own agendas, have rushed to write op-eds or
otherwise opine to the media on topics far from their expertise.  They are
affecting people's fears and lives and confusing rational decision making on
governmental policies and investments.   If the Drudge Report account is at
all accurate, I am extremely disappointed that the widely viewed and well
regarded 60 Minutes would base a story on such an incredibly important issue
on an "expert" with so little standing on the subject and not seek the best
scientific perspectives available.  I suspect the story is already "in the
can," but would nonetheless urge you to pull it and get your research right.
Do one on John Murtha instead--now that is important and timely.  

Don Boesch
Donald F. Boesch, President
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science P.O. Box 775,
Cambridge, MD 21613 USA

+1.410.228.9250 x601   +1.410.228.3843 fax

www.umces.edu 

###

(Text of Dr. Robert Twilley's letter) 

To:  CBS Producers
From: Robert Twilley, Professor
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science LSU

RE:  Drudge Report on New Orleans

I have been forwarded the advance report on sinking of New Orleans
(http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm  ) by Prof. Tim Kusky of St. Louis
University.  I have also read the opinion by Dr. Donald Boesch, President of
the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. I concur with
the comments by Dr. Boesch and think that you should seriously reconsider
this piece of journalism as scientific analysis of the situation in south
Louisiana and New Orleans.

Coastal Louisiana has long been a landscape of rich natural resources and
extensive human settlements that have tried to manage the risks of occupying
an extremely dynamic coastal environment. The coastal wetland landscape has
been degrading for nearly 100 years, while the entire social system and
industrial infrastructure along the coast was devastated in a month by
hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Now the stakes are higher as we in Louisiana
struggle with not only rebuilding our natural resources, but also the social
systems that have been devastated by these two hurricanes. There is an
urgency to provide protection and jobs to communities along the coast. It is
agreed that artificial landscape changes to reduce risks to navigation,
energy related industries, transportation, and communities interfered with
the coastal processes of the river delta so important to sustaining wetland
vegetation and barrier islands. Projects for the public good funded by
federal government have! resulted in unintended consequences.

But we cannot and should not as a Nation abandon either the economic or the
natural resources of the coastal landscape of Louisiana - this is a working
coast that provides goods and services of tremendous national importance.

Rebuilding after Katrina and Rita must address the ongoing and dynamic
changes in this landscape, and the fundamental importance of river resources
that once supported more than 6 million acres of coastal wetlands. Even with
the occurrence of sea level rise, subsidence, and hurricanes, adequate river
resources consisting of freshwater and sediments sustained this coast for
more than 4000 years.  And we have been developing a plan to restore coastal
wetlands, in concert now with rebuilding the urban areas of the coast, to
provide for a sustainable landscape.

The erroneous extrapolations by Dr. Kusky are counter to the scores of
scientists and engineers (www.clear.lsu.edu  ) that have participated in
developing a plan to sustain this deltaic landscape using resources from the
river.  This plan has been reviewed by national and international scholars
that have commented on the merits of this approach.  Producing a documentary
based on one scientific individual at the expense of the collective science
and engineering community on this ambitious project is a very myopic piece
of journalism.  This is a project and issue of national and international
importance - and deserves more critical and credible review than CBS has
offered through this very limited documentary.&! nbsp; I hoped for more from
CBS - and find this very disappointing and agree that you should seriously
consider pulling this report.

Robert R. Twilley, Director
Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Science Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA   70803
Email: rtwilley at lsu.edu

###

OTHER RESEARCHERS AND CONTACTS

Gregory William Stone

James P. Morgan Distinguished Professor
Coastal Studies Institute, &
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences312 Howe-Russell Geosciences
Complex
Baton Rouge, LA 70803 
Phone: 225-578-6188
Fax: 225-578-2520
Email: gagreg at lsu.edu

http://www.csi.lsu.edu/trial3.asp?prof=11&tab=journals2

Dr. Denise Reed

Department of Geology and Geophysics 
University of New Orleans 
2000 Lakeshore Drive 
New Orleans, LA 70148 
USA

Phone:  504-280-6325
Fax: 504-280-7396
Email: djreed at uno.edu

http://www.gulfbase.org/person/view.php?uid=dreed

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www.lra.louisiana.gov