New Orleans - The New Atlantis
In America, the profit motive, mythical thinking and political imperative unite to defeat many of our best plans. Realistic assessment of risks and costs associated with our critical programs rarely engender serious discussion in society. The bigger the issue, such as universal healthcare or financial industry reform, the more likely that politics and the profit motive will combine to obscure the underlying issues at stake. In our current political climate, many politicians continue to propose projects and policies that defy the laws of Nature. The liberal politician might make popular promises to fix everything that is wrong. Conservatives, as a group, might promise to obstruct legitimate change. Meanwhile, accumulation of power and attainment of elite status are the real goals of most politicians.
Likewise, the profit motive can blind unprincipled
business people. Why else would we see a high-pressure natural gas
transmission line snaking through the residential neighborhoods of San
Bruno, California? In a cost saving measure, the pipeline’s owner
skipped a previously funded retrofit of a nearby line. Is it too much to
ask that retrofits of high-pressure gas lines running through
residential neighborhoods include automatic or remote control shut-off
valves? When it ruptured, the thirty-inch San Bruno pipeline ejected explosive natural gas into a peaceful residential neighborhood.
As with the Deepwater Horizon Rig, once the gas
ignited, a massive explosion was only the start of the catastrophe.
Built without automatic shutoff valves, the San Bruno line took almost
two hours to close. By that time, the area adjacent to the rupture had
burned so hot that four missing persons
appear to have vaporized, without a trace. The heat generated was so
intense that more than a day later, rescue workers could not enter
several former residences.
As if struck by mass amnesia, operators, regulators
and legislators responsible for the San Bruno gas transmission line
ignored the safety needs of thousands of residents. Displaying mythical
thinking in their “It cannot happen here”
attitude, ignorance and the profit motive combined to allow another
human-caused catastrophe. Owner and operator of the gas line, Pacific
Gas & Electric (PG&E)
has only $1 billion in its insurance fund. If recent human-created
disaster payouts are any indicator, PG&E’s losses in upcoming
litigation could bankrupt the company. For lack of foresight, PG&E
now faces downward price pressure on its stock value. Inevitably, the
ratepayers whose community went up in flames will pay the price to fix the problem.
Five years after Hurricane Katrina battered and flooded New Orleans, Louisiana, conflicting plans, pledges and promises to rebuild the city and wetlands abound. When mythical thinking
emanates from so many stakeholders at once, the result is an onslaught
of Atlantean elite thinking, right here in the United States.
Only 180 of New Orleans’s 350 square miles consist
of dry land. Originally built on a knoll surrounded by wetlands and the
Mississippi River, decades of groundwater pumping left most of New
Orleans below sea level. With a 10,000-mile long hodgepodge of channels,
dikes, levees and pumping stations, it is amazing that New Orleans
survived intact until Hurricane Katrina flooded it in 2005.
Post-Katrina, independent environmental and engineering studies concluded that a pre-Katrina size
New Orleans could not stand forever against rising oceans and
hurricane-driven storms. In addition to storm surge, the prospect of
simultaneous flooding from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain
add to the city’s woes. Despite the thoroughness of the studies,
self-serving politicians, leading a complicit citizenry, ignored those uncomfortable findings. As we learned from the Lost City of Atlantis, perceived human needs, political fealty and an incipient profit motive can later manifest as both human and ecological catastrophes.
Over five years after Katrina, stakeholders ignore
the imperative to create a smaller New Orleans, opting for a more costly
“full city” approach. Government agencies have bought few, if any of
the most vulnerable parcels as buffers to future flooding. Today, costly
and incomplete levees only partially protect the city from category
five hurricanes. Almost all of us wish to save New Orleans, yet few
Americans are aware of its perilous geographic perch. No one knows how
much money it might take to fully protect the larger city, let alone rebuild after another flood.
In August 2010, the country of Pakistan received
unprecedented rainfall in its highlands. A month later, at the peak of
flooding, over 62,000 square miles
of low-lying countryside were impassible. That inundated area could
hold 177 cities the size of New Orleans. Only extreme optimists see
Pakistan returning to its pre-flood level of economic activity within
five years. With huge losses of natural habitat and farmland, skeptics
say that Pakistan may never fully recover. In both size and destructive
power, the recent flood in Pakistan represented a quantum leap of
destruction in an already troubled economy.
Likewise, until Katrina, New Orleans residents had never seen floodwater cover ninety percent of their city’s
geographical boundaries. At the time of the city’s founding, vast
wetlands defended New Orleans from hurricane-related storm surges.
Potential flooding from the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain
were then unknown. Of paramount importance to early settlers was the
ability to defend the city against other humans. Using the river like a moat,
early settlers built a town deemed defensible against marauders. To
this day, the Mississippi River surrounds a portion of New Orleans on
three sides. Now the most likely potential marauder is the river itself.
Since 1963, the U.S. Army Core of Engineers (COE)
has used the Old River Control Structure to control the flow of the
Mississippi River as it approaches the delta. Located 335 nautical miles
upriver from the Mississippi River's Gulf outfall, the Old River
Control Structure employs floodgates to fix the ratio of water flowing
down the Mississippi River and to the Atchafalaya River at 70/30. After
an unsuccessful nineteenth century attempt to straighten the flow of the
Mississippi River, the Old River's steeper gradient to the sea favored
stronger flow into the Atchafalaya River. Over time, siltation blocked
more of the Mississippi River flow, resulting in a predicted permanent
capture of the Mississippi River by the Atchafalaya River. The “old river” that the Old River Control Structure attempts to thwart is the cutoff to the Atchafalaya River.
Siltation, dredging and a lesser gradient to the sea
combine to threaten ocean and river navigation in and around New
Orleans. At the Old River Control Structure, the COE diverts seventy
percent of available Mississippi River water down through New Orleans.
Without the combined effects of higher water levels and increased
flushing action, New Orleans would no longer remain viable as a deep
water port. Without the constant scouring of the Mississippi River
Channel at New Orleans, ships entering port might run aground on
sandbars or snags, as did the steamboats of olden days.
If for any reason, or no reason, the Mississippi
River were to retake its natural course, New Orleans would soon become a
backwater. A permanent new channel would cut its way through the
Atchafalaya Swamp. By permanent, I mean that eons might pass before
siltation along Atchafalaya River would block its flow and thus send the
main flow back again through New Orleans. Upon losing its unnatural
share of river flow, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana would lose
their status as deep water ports.
What is there to prevent this natural change from
happening? Only the Old River Control Structure, built on poles sunk
deep into primordial river mud, stands against the flow. Having outlived
its expected service life, some sections of the Old River Control
Structure vibrate at ever-higher frequencies.
If river-induced vibration were to rise, agitation of the support poles
might liquefy the underlying mud. Once loosened from its moorings,
gravity might not hold the structure firmly in place. Relentlessly, the
river seeks its natural course. At a time unknown, the weakness of
structure and the power of Nature shall combine to destroy both the floodgates and levees.
By James McGillis at 05:40 PM | Environment | Comments (0) | Link
