Background articles on Iraq war & New Orleans crisis: A perfectly avoidable catastrophe

-Compiled by Project on Defense Alternatives for War Report, 02 Sept 2005-

* Governors Concerned Over National Guard Deployments in Iraq (New York Times, 17 July 2005)
* As federal aid wanes, local leaders are trying to find ways to protect the metro area from the fiercest hurricanes (Times-Picayune, 28 May 2005)
* Bush budget cuts levee, drainage funds (Times-Picayune, 8 February 2005)
* Governors Tell of War's Impact on Local Needs (New York Times, 20 July 2004)
* Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees; Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows (Times-Picayune, 8 June 2004)
* Corps sees its resources siphoned off (Times-Picayune, 24 April 2004)
* Corps of Engineers head booted out; Budget cuts remarks considered disloyal (Times-Picayune, 7 March 2002)

Governors Concerned Over National Guard Deployments in Iraq

Michael Janofsky and Adam Nagourney
New York Times
17 July 2005

The nation's governors are expressing growing concern that the extended deployment of National Guard soldiers in Iraq is depleting troop resources at home, threatening to leave states unable to respond to the natural disasters, civil unrest and other domestic emergencies that traditionally lead governors to call out the Guard.

The state's leaders, meeting here at the summer gathering of the National Governors Association, said they were worried that the extended overseas deployments, combined with declining enlistments as National Guard stints have become lengthy postings in war zones, would strip them of what has for years been a bulwark against domestic emergencies.

''If we had a major natural disaster, we would be stretched thin,'' said Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican who will take over as the chairman of the association on Monday. ''I think all governors right now are worried about the long-term impact of long deployment and frequent deployment on recruiting and retention. It is a major topic of concern.''

Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, a Democrat and the departing chairman, said, ''We are changing the role of citizen-soldier to soldier-citizen.'' He later added, ''Is it really the best use to take a first responder from home and put him in to guard an airport in Saudi Arabia?''

Gov. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a Republican, said he was confident that his state could deal with an emergency today, but feared the changing nature of guard duty would force a decline in enlistments and re-enlistments. ''It's working today,'' Mr. Rounds said. ''But the concern that a lot of us have is keeping them in for a second and third enlistment.''

The governors, in two days of interviews and public appearances, said they were not questioning the heroism of National Guard troops, or, in most cases, the necessity of the war. ''This is not governors being critical of the war effort,'' Mr. Warner said.

They also said there had been no talk among the governors about reinstituting a draft to compensate for the military shortfalls that are a cost of an all-volunteer army. The governors are planning to meet privately with the chief of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, on Monday to discuss their concerns. A spokesman for the Guard, Major John Toniolli, said that General Blum was ''well aware of the concern'' and that he promised shortly after he became chief to try to assure states they would always have 50 percent of their Guard troops at home and available.

Over all, the number of Reserve and National Guard troops on both domestic and overseas missions is dropping, and military officials expect that trend to continue, offering part-time soldiers who have been on long tours of duty the chance to return home.

Still, several governors described their states as one disaster away from a calamity. ''Being in the West in the sixth year of a drought, we have concern about what we've seen in the past, such as that a wildfire can hit where we have to utilize the National Guard,'' said Governor Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, a Republican.

For Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco of Louisiana, the major concern was with hurricanes. She and three other states in the hurricane belt -- Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi -- have agreed to help one another in the case of the threat, hurricanes or other disasters, as they tried to adjust to tighter circumstances in their states. ''Jeb Bush already called me once this year to say, 'I'm just checking in,''' said Ms. Blanco, a Democrat, referring to Florida's governor. Mr. Bush, a Republican, did not attend the conference.

Mr. Huckabee said the fear in Arkansas was tornadoes. ''We could manage it now,'' he said. ''But the problem is if we had to deploy our guards for an extended period of time for recovery of, let's say a tornado or some other type of natural disaster, we would by necessity be pulling people who had just gotten back from war. And who have already been gone from their families for almost three years.''

For the fiscal year ending June 30, the Army National Guard fell 23 percent short of its recruitment goal, signing up only 34,589 troops; its goal was 44,989. The numbers were reflected in anecdotal reports by the governors here. ''We are not meeting the recruitment levels that we need,'' said Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a Democrat. ''And I think it's abundantly clear that we don't have personnel -- whether it is full time or part time -- to take care of all the needs and concerns of Americans.''

A number of governors, including Mr. Vilsack and Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, said they had taken steps in their states to try to counter the decline in enrollment by offering incentives, such as college scholarships and subsidies for first-time home buyers. ''We think we are going to need to recognize the greater demand on the young men and women that serve in the Guard by substantially improving their benefits,'' said Mr. Romney, a Republican.

Even with the number of Guard members decreasing in recent months, Mr. Warner said: ''It still begs the larger question: What is the role of the Guard 10, 20 years from now, and how does it fit in with our overall force structure?''

(Copyright New York Times)

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As federal aid wanes, local leaders are trying to find ways
to protect the metro area from the fiercest hurricanes

Sheila Grissett
Times-Picayune
28 May 2005

Even as federal money for flood prevention in southeast Louisiana dwindles in the wake of the Iraq war, local experts and politicians are laying the groundwork to push for millions of dollars for planning a system to foil storm surge from a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. The Army Corps of Engineers estimates it will take at least four years and more than $10 million just to evaluate four Category 5 protection alternatives, in hopes that one can pass environmental muster and the scrutiny of Congress.

The most unusual of the four would add a third bridge to I-10 between New Orleans and Slidell and equip it with huge side panels that could be raised and lowered to keep a potentially deadly storm surge out of Lake Pontchartrain.

"There will one day be a substantial loss of life unless we have Category 5 protection," said Al Naomi, the corps' senior project manager for the Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity hurricane protection levee system.

Other alternatives in the corps' feasibility study would include raising levees 5 to 10 feet and adding retractable barriers across waterways such as the Industrial Canal and the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes. Naomi said he included the I-10 alternative because the novel proposal is sure to get local residents talking about the best way to build the next level of protection.

"We have to get people thinking creatively, thinking outside the box, about what kind of Category 5 flood protection they can get behind and support," he said. "We want them to recognize that there are alternatives out there that can serve multiple purposes, like the I-10 alternative.

"For example, in addition to surge protection, the third parallel span could be used for evacuations and, during normal days, for alternating traffic flow during the morning and evening to aid commuters."

Whichever proposal is ultimately chosen, Naomi said, it will be necessary to link the levees and barriers from high ground on the north shore to the Mississippi River in St. Bernard Parish. "We must have a continuous line of protection. This is about drawing a line in the sand," Naomi said. "And wherever that line is, that's where we build our structures."

Broussard seeking support

Naomi outlined the possibilities of Category 4 or 5 protection for political, business, civic, and emergency management officials in May at the Regional Planning Commission's first hurricane-preparedness summit. Commission executives said the conference was the brainchild of Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard, chairman of the commission's environmental committee.

Broussard said he doesn't know which of the so-called barrier alternatives is the best choice, but he said he's ready to marshal support to lobby Congress for money. "By educating the political and civic community about how vulnerable we are, perhaps we can launch the momentum to help move this forward," he said. "We have to look again at a barrier system using new technology that protects the lake even as it protects us from storm surges."

Walter Brooks, the Regional Planning Commission's executive director, said he has seen local support for a study of greater protection grow in the past few years. Then in 2004, Hurricane Ivan provided a new catalyst. "We've learned that we're not as safe as we thought we were," Brooks said. "As local officials gain knowledge and become increasingly aware of the threat, I see a united interest in looking at the problem of how to have better protection.

"I think Ivan has helped everyone realize that the need for protection from hurricanes is a regional threat that requires a regional response, a coalition to get work on getting money from Congress." Broussard said he will ask his subcommittee to encourage Congress to appropriate its 50 percent of the feasibility study's costs. Officials with the state Department of Transportation and Development, the corps' financing partner on the study project, said they are trying to find their share.

Four years ago, Congress gave the corps permission to begin its study of structures that could stave off storm surge from the biggest of all hurricanes -- but not the money to do the study. Naomi has been pushing for that money ever since. But the efforts come at a time when Congress and the Bush administration are steadily reducing appropriations for both hurricane system improvements and flood-protection construction in the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project.

Revisiting flood plans

Congress authorized the corps in the 1960s to begin designing and building levees and other structures to protect the New Orleans area against fast-moving Category 3 storms. Much of that construction is still years away from being finished. Under the original plan, floodgate-type structures would have been built at the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain.

Those plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's ecosystem, Naomi said. Now the corps wants to take another look using more environmentally sensitive construction than was previously available. "The plan we come up with might or might not include building structures at the Rigolets and Chef Pass, but they would be different structures than what would have been built earlier," Naomi said.

He said the feasibility work, if financed by Congress, will be done in three distinct geographical sections: the Pearl River to Mississippi River, the Mississippi to Morgan City and the lower Mississippi. He said it would be cost-prohibitive and unmanageable to do all the work affecting 15 parishes in one study.

Whichever Category 5 system is ultimately chosen, Naomi said, it is likely to cost $2 billion or more. But without it, engineers predict a worst-case scenario in which a storm would push its surge all the way to Interstate 12 and leave the New Orleans metro area underwater for months.

(Copyright Times-Picayune)

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Bush budget cuts levee, drainage funds;
Backlog of contracts waits to be awarded

Mark Schleifstein
Times-Picayune
8 February 2005

While President Bush's proposed budget contains a hefty increase in money for the federal-state Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration plan, other Army Corps of Engineers construction projects in the state, including levee and drainage projects in the New Orleans area, will see significant cuts.

The corps' New Orleans District, which stretches across the state's coastline, will get $290 million, a $34 million reduction from the dollars allocated for fiscal year 2005 by Congress, and almost $300 million less than the district says it needs to complete proposed and ongoing construction projects.

The corps' fiscal year 2006 budget is part of broad belt-tightening by the Bush administration in response to the war in Iraq and rapidly increasing deficits. Some of Bush's proposed cuts could still be reversed by Congress when it takes up the budget.

The federal-state coastal restoration plan will get $20 million, an $11.5 million increase from 2005, but still far short of what officials say is needed to begin construction of dozens of wetland and shoreline restoration projects.

The Senate is expected to take up the Water Resources Development Act, a list of water-related projects expected to include authorization for $1.9 billion for the Louisiana restoration program, sometime this month. But it could be a year or longer before the money for those projects is appropriated in separate legislation, officials say. Also awaiting congressional authorization are two major levee projects -- from Morganza to the Gulf and from Donaldsonville to the Gulf -- that the Bush budget doesn't address. Those projects together are expected to cost more than $1.2 billion.

Bush's budget does list the West Bank hurricane protection levee construction project as a priority, corps budget officer Marcia Demma said. But the $28 million included in Bush's budget is less than half the $63 million the corps said is needed in 2006. And the $3 million proposed for continued construction of the Lake Pontchartrain hurricane levee probably won't be enough to clear a backlog of contracts waiting to be awarded, Demma said, including ones that would close a major gap in the levee system in St. Charles Parish.

Mark Lambert, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, said the state also has been notified that construction dollars will be reduced for a project to raise the Mississippi River levee between the Arkansas border and the Old River Control Structure, north of Baton Rouge. "What these cuts mean is that the people of Louisiana will be at risk for a longer period of time," Lambert said.

Jefferson critical of budget

U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-New Orleans, was also critical of priorities set by Bush's budget. "While we work to widen the Industrial Canal and provide hurricane protection for our coast, this budget cuts the New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers budget by over $53 million, providing zero funding for the Inner Harbor Lock Canal project and with a $26 million cut for Southeastern Louisiana hurricane protection and drainage projects," Jefferson said.

"The federal budget is, at its core, an _expression of our nation's priorities. Once again, through this disappointing budget, this administration confirms that it is wholly out of touch with America's values and the real needs of people in Louisiana and throughout the nation."

Windell Curole, executive director of the South Lafourche Levee District, said he's worried that a decision to cut all money for completion of the Larose to Golden Meadow hurricane levee could spell disaster. "Luckily, we have built a substantial amount of this final lift," he said. "But if we're a couple of feet low and the water goes over the top, we go from zero damage to millions of dollars lost by our citizens."

New ranking method used

Curole was critical of a new method used by corps officials to rank projects by comparing the remaining benefits to be gained from completing a project to the cost of completion. Some corps staffers also aren't happy with the new method, saying that with some projects like levees it doesn't adequately measure the potential danger of not completing a final levee lift.

When a levee is built, it is done in repeated lifts, where the levee is allowed to settle in place and then is raised a second and third time to the height required to keep out water. "The Larose to Golden Meadow levee fell below that cutoff line and got nothing," corps project manager Brett Herr said. "If there's a reach below design grade, that lowest reach is the weakest link," and the new formula doesn't take that into account.

Also facing significant cuts is the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Program, whose projects include a variety of canal widenings, culvert replacements and pump station replacements and upgrades in Orleans and Jefferson parishes.

The projects would get $10.5 million in 2006 in the Bush proposal, compared to $35 million in 2005. A number of contractors were advised last year that they had the option of quitting work on their projects or picking up the cost of construction themselves, until the corps could find money to repay them.

14 projects still not started

Stan Green, project manager for the drainage projects, said the money proposed for 2006 probably won't be enough to allow even one of the 14 projects still not started to be put out to bid. In part, he said, that's because corps officials in Washington want the district to have the entire cost of construction for new projects in hand before they're allowed to be put out to bid.

Exacerbating the problem is a requirement that the drainage program pay back almost $4 million it borrowed from other corps programs in the New Orleans district in previous years to speed construction. "That'd put us in a situation where we could not award any new contracts," he said.

Demma said it's unclear whether the cuts will require layoffs among New Orleans district's staff.

"We're still determining the impacts, and we have a lot of folks retiring," she said.

(Copyright Times-Picayune)

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Governors Tell of War's Impact on Local Needs

Sarah Kershaw
New York Times
20 July 2004

With tens of thousands of their citizen soldiers now deployed in Iraq, many of the nation's governors have complained to senior Pentagon officials that they were facing severe manpower shortages in guarding prisoners, fighting wildfires, preparing for hurricanes and floods and policing the streets.

Concern among the governors about the war's impact at home has been rising for months, but it came into sharp focus this weekend as they gathered for their three-day annual conference here and began comparing the problems they faced from the National Guard's largest call-up since World War II. On Sunday, the governors held a closed-door meeting with two top Pentagon officials and voiced their concerns about the impact both on the troops' families and on the states' ability to deal with disasters and crime.

Much of the concern has focused on wildfires, which have started to destroy vast sections of forests in several Western states. The governor of Oregon, Theodore R. Kulongoski, a Democrat, said in an interview after meetings here Monday that the troop deployment had left his National Guard with half the usual number of firefighters because about 400 of them were overseas while a hot, dry summer was already producing significant fires in his state. ''We're praying a lot that a major fire does not break out,'' he said. ''It has been dry out here, the snow pack's gone because of an extremely warm May and June and the fire season came earlier.'' He added, ''You're just going to have fires and if you do not have the personnel to put them out, they can grow very quickly into ultimately catastrophic fires.''

Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, an Idaho Republican and the departing chairman of the National Governors Association, also said through a spokesman that he was worried about the deployment of 2,000 members, or 62 percent of his National Guard, who are now training in Texas for a mission in Iraq. ''In the past we've been able to call on the National Guard,'' said Mark Snider, a spokesman for the governor. ''We may not be able to call on these soldiers for firefighting capabilities.''

California fire and forestry officials said they were not using National Guard troops to battle wildfires plaguing that state, but they did say that they were using nine Blackhawk helicopters borrowed from the Guard to fight the fires. Some of the helicopters are bound for Iraq in September.

More than 150,000 National Guard and Reserve troops are on active duty. Many of the Guard troops have received multiple extensions of their tours of duty since the United States went to war with Iraq last year.

While Western governors focused mostly on wildfires, governors and other officials from other regions expressed a host of other worries, both at the meeting here and in telephone interviews. In Arizona, officials say, more than 130 prison guards are serving overseas, leaving their already crowded prisons badly short-staffed. In Tennessee, officials are worried about rural sheriff's and police departments, whose ranks have been depleted by the guard call-up. In Virginia, the concern is hurricanes; in Missouri, floods. And in a small town in Arkansas, Bradford, both the police chief and the mayor are now serving in Iraq, leaving their substitutes a bit overwhelmed. ''Our mayor and our police chief, along with six others, were activated, and they're over in Iraq,'' the acting mayor, Greba Edens, 79, said in a telephone interview. ''We had a police officer that could step in as chief, and I've been treasurer for 20 years so that just put me in the mayor's spot whether I wanted or it not.''

Many of the most outspoken governors who expressed concerns here about the National Guard deployments over the weekend were Democrats, including Mr. Kulongoski, Tom Vilsack of Iowa, Mark Warner of Virginia and Gary Locke of Washington. ''This has had a huge impact,'' Governor Locke said in a news conference on Saturday. In his state, 62 percent of its 87,000 Army National Guard soldiers are deployed, including the majority of the guard's best-trained firefighters, at a time when wildfires are beginning to sweep through the state, state officials say.

But even during a meeting that featured plenty of partisan sniping, Republicans also sounded worried about whether the deployments would leave them vulnerable in emergencies. Roger Schnell, Alaska's deputy commissioner for the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a telephone interview that wildfires raging through central Alaska were especially worrisome, given that 15 percent of its National Guard was stationed overseas. Alaska's governor, Frank H. Murkowski, a Republican, attended the governors' association meeting but was not available for comment.

While it is a small deployment compared with that of other sates, ''they are critical people,'' Mr. Schnell said, adding that the Alaska National Guard was called in two weeks ago to help battle the fires. ''It has the potential to get much worse than it is,'' he said. ''It's already bad. That could put us in a bind.''

Maj. Gen. Timothy J. Lowenberg, commander of the Washington State National Guard, who attended the Sunday meeting with Pentagon officials, said in an interview that he heard worries voiced by plenty of Republicans. ''There are absolutely no partisan pattern to the concerns being raised,'' he said. ''They are being articulated by governors of both parties.''

Governors and others who attended the Sunday meeting with David S.C. Chu, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said nothing concrete had emerged from the meeting. The Pentagon officials who attended the meeting could not be reached for comment. But Lt. Col. Gerard F. Healy, a spokesman for the Army, said ''there is consideration for making sure not too many forces are taken from the same area'' when troops are called up.

On Monday, the governors met with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, in a closed-door meeting focusing on a terrorism and bioterrorism exercise. At a brief news conference with several governors before the meeting, Mr. Ridge said coordination between the states and the federal government was crucial.

''It doesn't take any kind of genius to figure out that the homeland is more secure when the hometowns are secure,'' Mr. Ridge said. ''Homeland security is more than just a cabinet agency. It is about the integration of an entire country.''

(Copyright New York Times)

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Shifting federal budget erodes protection from levees;
Because of cuts, hurricane risk grows

Sheila Grissett
Times-Picayune
8 June 2004

For the first time in 37 years, federal budget cuts have all but stopped major work on the New Orleans area's east bank hurricane levees, a complex network of concrete walls, metal gates and giant earthen berms that won't be finished for at least another decade.

"I guess people look around and think there's a complete system in place, that we're just out here trying to put icing on the cake," said Mervin Morehiser, who manages the "Lake Pontchartrain and vicinity" levee project for the Army Corps of Engineers. "And we aren't saying that the sky is falling, but people should know that this is a work in progress, and there's more important work yet to do before there is a complete system in place."

In reality, levee building is a long-term undertaking. Section by section, earth is piled into walls as high as 20 feet to protect land on the east bank of the Mississippi River from water that a slow-moving Category 3 hurricane could shove out of Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Borgne. But the levees gradually settle into southeast Louisiana's mucky subsoil, and every few years, the corps comes back, section by section, to pile on more dirt in what insiders call a "lift."

"It has always been part of our long-range plan to raise each section of the levee four or even five times," said Al Naomi, the corps' senior project manager. "After that, we think the levee might have stabilized and not need further raisings."

Time for next lift

It's time now for the next lifts in a number of places that have sunk 2 to 4 feet from their design elevations. These include in Kenner west of the Pontchartrain Center, Metairie between Causeway Boulevard and Clearview Parkway, Norco and St. Rose in St. Charles Parish, the Bayou Sauvage area of eastern New Orleans, and remote marshland areas of eastern St. Bernard Parish.

The subsidence is expected.

What's new, said Morehiser and Naomi, is that the agency has run out of money for the next round of lifts. Naomi said this is the first time a lack of money has stopped major corps work on the levees since the project began in 1967. "I can't tell you exactly what that could mean this hurricane season if we get a major storm," Naomi said. "It would depend on the path and speed of the storm, the angle that it hits us.

"But I can tell you that we would be better off if the levees were raised, . . . and I think it's important and only fair that those people who live behind the levee know the status of these projects."

Levees on the east bank of New Orleans, as well as some in eastern St. Bernard Parish, are among the area's oldest and have had several lifts. Corps engineers said the next lift might be the last they need. But the levees on the east bank of St. Charles and Jefferson parishes are much younger, and most stretches have had only one or two lifts.

"This project isn't expected to end for another 13 to 15 years," Morehiser said. "They aren't really finished levees at this point. We don't even turn them over to their local sponsors until we consider them stable, which is years from now."

The levees are designed to handle a storm surge of 11 feet, and every additional foot of levee above that is intended to contain waves that otherwise would top the levee. The height of individual levee segments vary.

"When levees are below grade, as ours are in many spots right now, they're more vulnerable to waves pouring over them and degrading them," Naomi said. "We're not below storm-surge elevation yet, but we will be if we stop raising our levees as they subside."

Bush budget falls short

The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2005 budget includes only $3.9 million for the east bank hurricane project. Congress likely will increase that amount, although last year it bumped up the administration's $3 million proposal only to $5.5 million.

"I needed $11 million this year, and I got $5.5 million," Naomi said. "I need $22.5 million next year to do everything that needs doing, and the first $4.5 million of that will go to pay four contractors who couldn't get paid this year."

Naomi said the corps already owes four contractors more than $2 million for hurricane protection work they've done this year without pay, and he expects the figure to climb to about $4.5 million by Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

The challenge now, said emergency management chiefs Walter Maestri in Jefferson Parish and Terry Tullier in New Orleans, is for southeast Louisiana somehow to persuade those who control federal spending that protection from major storms and flooding are matters of homeland security.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Maestri said. "Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Tullier said, "There is no magic bullet or single key for us. It takes all the keys that we have, and our system of protection is only as strong as its weakest link.

"For us, this levee is part and parcel of homeland security because it helps protect us 365 days a year."

Weak links elsewhere

Levee-raising is only part of the flood-related work that has stopped since the federal government began reducing Corps of Engineers appropriations in 2001, as more money was diverted to homeland security, the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Naomi said the local corps district has no money to close gaps in the hurricane levee on St. Charles Parish's east bank. That levee is designed to protect St. Rose, Destrehan, New Sarpy and Norco, as well as keep floodwater from closing Airline Drive, a major evacuation route.

Nor does the corps have money to floodproof the Robert E. Lee Bridge over the London Canal in New Orleans, nor to build the concrete walls and gates to protect pump stations Nos. 3 and 7 from storm surges on the New Orleans lakefront.

All of these projects, along with periodic levee lifts, are part of the corps' long-term $745 million hurricane protection project.

"The big danger here is that if we don't get the money to award these contracts that are ready to go, the backlog will only increase as the levees continue to settle," Naomi said. "We'll end up so far behind that we can't catch up. And the further behind we get, the more critical the safety of the city becomes."

(Copyright Times-Picayune)

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Corps sees its resources siphoned off;
Wetlands restoration officials sent to Iraq

Mark Schleifstein
Times-Picayune
24 April 2004

Less money is available to the Army Corps of Engineers to build levees and water projects in the Mississippi River valley this year and next year, the next president of the Mississippi River Commission said Friday. But that didn't stop Louisiana government, business and environmental leaders from demanding more action from the Bush administration on protection from hurricanes and restoration of coastal wetlands.

Brig. Gen. Don Riley, commander of the Vicksburg, Miss., office that oversees corps operations throughout the Mississippi Valley, said this marks the third year his budget has dropped.

Corps officials involved in restoring Louisiana's wetlands also have been sent to assist those fighting in and rebuilding Iraq, including oversight of a similar wetlands restoration project there, he said.

Ed Theriot, a Vicksburg-based engineer who had directed the Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study, was sent to Iraq four months ago to oversee the restoration of the "Garden of Eden" wetlands at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that were destroyed by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. President Bush's 2005 budget allocates $100 million for that effort.

In Louisiana, $8 million is allocated in the Bush budget for completing the coastal wetlands study that Theriot was heading. However, administration officials hope that this summer Congress will authorize the first Louisiana projects as part of a 10-year restoration effort.

State and federal officials have said that authorization could result in between $1 billion and $2 billion being spent on wetlands and barrier island restoration projects. However, Army Assistant Secretary for Public Works John Woodley said Friday that the administration has not yet committed to a dollar figure for the congressional request.

The 125-year-old river commission oversees most federal levee, navigation and other water projects in the Mississippi Valley and is expected to have an advisory role in the state's wetlands restoration plans. During the "high-water inspection" public meeting Friday, the fourth held aboard the corps dredge Mississippi at various locations along the river this week, state and local officials urged the commission to support the restoration plans.

However, officials representing St. Bernard Parish and the executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation repeated their opposition to the restoration plan if it does not include a commitment to close the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shortcut from the Gulf of Mexico to the Industrial Canal in New Orleans that is blamed for destroying thousands of acres of wetlands.

Several shipping industry officials told the commission that they agree the Gulf Outlet is causing environmental damage, but they said adopting a proposal to reduce the depth of the Gulf Outlet's channel to 15 feet must wait until a project is completed to replace and enlarge the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal lock that allows ships to pass from the Mississippi River to the Industrial Canal.

Financial reductions have delayed completion of that project indefinitely. The most recent estimate of its completion was 2017.

Martin Cancienne, regional director for U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, said it's time for corps officials to make a decision on closing the channel. "It's an issue that doesn't need to be studied anymore," Cancienne said. "It needs to be dealt with."

An official with the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality was joined by several environmentalists in urging the commission to support a congressionally authorized study aimed at re-creating wetlands and riverside forests along the Mississippi from Cairo, Ill., to the Gulf of Mexico.

The states along the river already have chipped in $500,000 to begin the study, but federal money has been lacking, said Dugan Sabins, an official with the environmental agency. Restoring riverside land to wetlands and forests will both help wildlife and provide areas that act as filters for fertilizers and other nutrients that help create the low-oxygen "dead zone" in the Gulf along Louisiana's coast each spring and summer.

(Copyright Times-Picayune)

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Corps of Engineers head booted out;
Budget cuts remarks considered disloyal

Bruce Alpert
Times-Picayune
7 March 2002

WASHINGTON -- The head of the Army Corps of Engineers was forced to resign Wednesday because members of the Bush administration decided he had not vigorously defended proposed budget cuts for key corps flood control and dredging projects, members of Congress said.

The Defense Department issued a brief statement saying Mike Parker, assistant secretary of the Army for civil works, had resigned. Parker could not be reached for comment.

Parker got into trouble, according to members of Congress, during his appearance last week before a House Appropriations subcommittee, where he encountered angry members upset about the Bush administration's proposal to cut the corps' 2003 budget by 10 percent.

Among the cuts: a two thirds reduction in spending for southeast Louisiana, from $60 million to $20 million in the fiscal year that beings Oct. 1.

During the hearing, subcommittee Chairman Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., blamed the Office of Management and Budget, saying the agency was made up of "bureaucratic imbeciles," calling it an "axis of evil," borrowing the phrase President Bush used to describe Iraq, North Korea and Iran.

Parker said that the OMB had a tough job balancing the spending needs prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but added that he hoped the budget agency "understands we're at the beginning of the process," and that "if the corps is limited in what it does for the American people, there will be a negative impact."

Some members of the appropriations subcommittee said the statements were considered disloyal by OMB Director Mitch Daniels and Karl Rove, senior assistant to the president, both of whom reportedly pushed for Parker's dismissal. "Billy did his best to try to head this off at the pass," said Ken Johnson, an aide to Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Chackbay, a longtime Parker friend. "But the decision had already been made to fire him. "Apparently, some people at the White House saw his statements as being disloyal. We see it as nothing more than Mike being Mike. Ask him a question, and you'll get an honest answer."

Parker is a former Democratic congressman from Mississippi who, like Tauzin, switched to the Republican Party in 1995 after the GOP assumed the majority in the House for the first time in 40 years. He resigned from the House in 1998 to run for governor of Mississippi, but was narrowly defeated.

Howard Marlowe, a lawyer and lobbyist on waterway issues, said Parker was told Wednesday that he had 30 minutes to tender his resignation or be fired. He decided to resign, according to Marlowe and congressional officials.

Word of his departure soon spread to Capitol Hill, where members generally have championed corps projects and defended them from budget cutters in Republican and Democratic administrations. Among those angry at the firing was Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, a member of the Appropriations Committee who suggested that the Bush administration may well be "in denial" about the anger over the proposed corps cuts. "If in fact this firing is related to his views that key corps projects are underfunded, that is a terrible shame because he's right," Vitter said. "There's no two ways about it that they are very underfunded around the country and in Louisiana, with the southeast Louisiana flood control (project) our most obvious example."

(Copyright Times-Picayune)