Holding Louisiana

In Louisiana, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers faces the enormous challenge of rebuilding a delta region that is quickly sinking. The challenge is complicated by the fact that many of the Corps's own flood control and navigation projects have accelerated sinking of the wetlands. Another complication is that the Corps's hurricane protection programs have been hampered by environmental lawsuits. After 1965, for example, when Hurricane Betsy breached the levees of Lake Pontchartrain, environmentalists blocked the Corps's plan to build gated hurricane barriers. Corps engineers repeatedly warned that, without hurricane barriers, the New Orleans levees might not withstand a Bestylike Class Three storm. Yet environmentalists claimed that hurricane barriers would spread housing projects that posed a threat to coastal wetlands. Ironically, tragically, the same massive engineering that protects coastal Louisiana also aggravates the sinking and deterioration that increases the impact of storms.