On Poor Management, Or, Did You Know There Was Another Deepwater?

It is by now obvious that even after we stop the gentle trickle of oil that’s currently expressing itself into the Gulf of Mexico (thank you so much, BP) we are not going to be able to get that oil out of the water for some considerable length of time--and if you think it could take years, I wouldn’t bet against you.

While BP is the legally responsible party, out on the water it will be up to the Coast Guard to manage the Federal response, and to determine that BP is running things in a way that gets the work done not only correctly and safely, but, in a world of limited resources, efficiently.

Which brings us to the obvious question: can the Coast Guard manage such a complex undertaking?

While we hope they can, you need to know that the Coast Guard has been trying to manage the replacement of their fleet of ships and aircraft for about a decade now…and the results have been so stunningly bad that you and I are now the proud owners of a small flotilla of ships that can never be used, because if they go to sea, they might literally break into pieces.

It’s an awful story, and before we’re done you’ll understand why Deepwater was already an ugly word around Headquarters, years before that oil rig blew up.

“I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news –
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

--William S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, “The Pirates of Penzance”

We’re going to try to keep today’s story relatively short (we won’t succeed, I’m afraid), and that means I’ll be a bit tighter with words than I would be normally, so let’s get right to the heart of the matter:

The US Coast Guard (USCG) works its ships and aircraft too hard, with inadequate downtime; as a result an old fleet is even older than its years.

Just like an old car, you have to work harder at maintenance, but things keep breaking down, and the costs really start to add up.

It’s not entirely their fault: they have more and more to do, especially after September 11th; they’re also expected to operate farther from home, and the tours of duty are longer.

At the same time the money they get to do it all keeps going down.

This circle had to be squared.

A decision was made to begin planning for the modernization or replacement of pretty much everything USCG owns that operates out in the deep water (that’s more than 50 miles from shore), and that’s how the Deepwater program was born.

Total assets involved: roughly 90 large ships, over 100 small boats, about 250 aircraft, and not quite $25 billion dollars.

USCG was convinced that they did not have the ability to manage this sort of program on their own, and they decided to procure everything from one prime contractor, a Lockheed/Northrop Grumman partnership.

The idea was that they would tell the contractor what they wanted the finished product to be able to do (in this case, the product was a fleet of ships and aircraft that could interact as a system), and the contractor would determine how to manage the program to completion.

With the “management” part of the process out of USCG’s hands, all the Admirals would have to do was “supervise” the contractor to make sure things were on time and on budget.

They did that by creating teams that would each watch over a small portion of the bigger picture, coordinating with each other and USCG senior management.

The next step was to determine what ships and aircraft to build; today we’ll concentrate on just four elements of the system, which should be enough to make the picture clear.

--The Coast Guard owned a number of 110 foot patrol boats, and they decided to refurbish them, to provide new capabilities within a 13-foot longer hull. This required the ships to be cut apart, and then reassembled.

As it turned out, that idea sucked.

One way to interpret the results would be to say the first eight newly-delivered craft were so unseaworthy (the hulls of the “brand-new” ships were actually cracking), so full of electrical problems, and so unable to protect classified communications that they never entered service, and they will be scrapped.

Another view: for quite some time Baltimore was continuously guarded by eight Coast Guard vessels, and the city was incredibly safe—as long as none of them had to actually leave the pier or do anything.

The loss: about $100 million. USCG is trying to get the money back.

“It’s going to be difficult to counter the bad publicity we’ve had despite the best efforts of our communications team,” admitted J. Rocco Tomonelli, director of Coast Guard business development at Northrop Grumman.”

--From the article “Coast Guard May Face Rough Seas as it Takes Control of Deepwater”, National Defense Magazine, October 2007

--USCG needed a big ship with the ability to operate as far away as the Middle East, and the National Security Cutter was it.

The job required that the vessels delivered had to be structurally sound for use in the North Pacific’s very rough seas for 30 years. The contractor was convinced the ships were sound, the Coast Guard was not, and the Navy was brought in to settle the argument.

USCG won, the taxpayer, again, lost.

An odd, but not surprising, solution was found. If USCG would just agree to not ask that the ships be so annoyingly capable, everything would be fine…so they did; this was done by assuming the ships would be at sea fewer days every year.

We now know that USCG expected some of the ships’ structural components to only last three years in actual service.

In 2006 it was reported that the first two hulls may or may not be fixable, and may have to be scrapped.

The first ship delivered, the Cutter Bertholf, was not allowed to perform any missions for almost seven months after commissioning due to its own failure to perform as expected. In October 2008 Bertholf conducted its first “shakedown” cruise and officially entered operational service.

More of these ships are being built, with fixes hopefully in place. Two are in acceptance trials; a funding request exists that would expand the fleet to five.

Our cost?
At least $650 million per ship.

--USCG planned to buy a dozen Fast Response Cutters; the contractor wanted to use newfangled composite hulls, reportedly for longer life and less maintenance.

That idea also sucked.

Officially, and I quote: “…the cutter design satisfied contract terms but did not meet Deepwater mission needs.” The resulting ships were judged to be too heavy and lacking in performance.

It is suggested that the contractor wanted to build this type of hull because they had a new composite facility available and there was money to be made. We’ll discuss that in a minute.

The plan now is to build the ships with metal hulls.
USCG is not attempting to recover the lost money on this one.

--USCG wanted Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) for the new ships. A fancy-schmancy tilt-rotor design that was already somewhat developed had to be abandoned because they couldn’t afford to produce the thing.

Current thinking is to steal something from the Navy’s UAV development program, stick a USCG radar system on it, and call it good.

The GAO and the Congressional Research Service have been looking into all this, a lot; they feel USCG has failed to properly resource the teams that are supposed to be supervising this process.

Excessive workload, transferring people in and out, failing to put team members in locations that are close to other team members, and failing to fill leadership positions were all issues noted in the reports.

The idea that the contractor would “own” the whole process, might work against USCG interests, and that USCG would be at their mercy was also noted. (Remember those fiberglass hulls?)

We’re told that teams working on the National Security Cutter tried to warn USCG senior management about the problems with the first few ships, and that they were ignored.

Total cost of all the mistakes: more than $1.5 billion.

Frankly, this is all Admiral Stuff, and the Admirals at USCG have nothing to be proud of, based on this part of the record.

USCG is now trying to turn all this around by taking over management of the program themselves, and although there is reason to believe things may be somewhat better, even that “fix” is creating problems.

For example, it’s reported that USCG is moving ahead on acquisition decisions even though they haven’t fully decided what the designs should be.

At this point, however, USCG has little choice: they can’t wait several years to train up a new crew of contract managers, then design, then build.

That’s because, right now, things are very bad for the Fleet: of the first 12 ships USCG sent to help after the earthquake in Haiti…10 broke, at various times, and that kept them from conducting rescues until they were fixed. Two of those had to return to the US for major repairs.

And here’s where the circle closes.

Admiral Thad Allen, who’s running the show on the Gulf Coast, spent the past four years as Commandant of the Coast Guard, and before that as Coast Guard Chief of Staff…which means, for good or for ill, he’s covered in Deepwater all the way up to his Cutterman Insignia.

The question now is: was he the reformer who fixed this stuff when he finally got the chance, or was he part of the problem in the first place?

I could not get the answer to this most critical question, so all I can tell you is to watch very, very, carefully—and don’t be afraid to assume the worst, until we truly do know better.

On Saving Louisiana, Or, Send Me Your Mud, Yearning To Be Free

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a story I originally posted in March of 2007 that seems so important right now I've brought it back for your consideration.

Let’s begin today’s discussion with a quick thought experiment.

What is the single most important thing necessary to ensure the survival of the State of Louisiana?

Improved government administration?
More and better levees?
The success of the “Road Home” project?

I submit it is none of these.

The single most important factor determining the future of the State of Louisiana is mud.

That’s right, mud.

Were you aware that the entire State consists of mud? When you look at a geologic map, there is nothing to be seen but sedimentary deposits dating back to the Cambrian period.

And the mud, it is a-sinking.

Katrina took out more than 57 square miles of land in Plaquemines Parish alone. That former land is now the Gulf of Mexico.

The Army Corps of Engineers has maps of the Mississippi river from 1998. When you get to the page, click on map 141. What you see is a portion of Plaquemines Parish. (Here’s the same place on Google Maps.)

Notice almost the entire map area consists of water, canals, and marsh. There’s only two narrow strips of solid ground evident. Now let’s pull out a bit. There’s just about nothing in the image but sinking ground. Now pull out just a little bit further, and guess what-there’s New Orleans.

This was the area of Louisiana most affected by Katrina.

It’s now time for you to meet Professor Oliver A. Houck. His essay “Can We Save New Orleans?”, published in the Tulane Law Journal, will be central to the remainder of this conversation, and I would encourage you in the strongest terms to take the time to read the document.

Here are some of the issues he brings to light:

--There is no consensus on what is to be done-should the emphasis be on maximizing the amount of developable land; or should the emphasis be on maximizing opportunities for natural processes to replenish the bayous? These are two mutually exclusive goals, and Houck suggests development is winning.

--The Federal government is responsible for maintaining navigation on the Mississippi, but flood control is managed locally. As a result of this and the huge amounts of money that are spread around through levee and other water control project construction, politics has more influence on the management process than science and inter-jurisdictional coordination.

--Environmental pollution-especially fertilizer runoffs-kill the marsh grasses that hold the soil together. As a result, the process of saving Louisiana starts in South Dakota, and is therefore a national, not just a State problem.

--It is easier to calculate the cost-benefit of industrial and commercial activity than the cost-benefit of saving lives-and safety advocates have fewer lobbyists.

--Money spent now, on non-development rights, for example, will be cheaper than money spent later on reconstruction or remediation.

And the most important of all:

--It’s the constant movement of silt down the river that makes it possible for there to be a Louisiana-and America’s history of “taming” the Mississippi has nearly brought that process to a stop. The River carried 400 million tons a year of silt 150 years ago, Houck reports, and today carries only 80 million. Without that “new” land to deposit in the Delta, there is no way to offset the erosion to the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s not the only reason the State is sinking, however. Pumping drinking water from aquifers has an impact, and the expansion of the ocean caused by global warming does, too. Even the weight of the levees themselves on the soft soil is affecting the situation.

Professor Houck, being a “fix-it” kind of analyst, has offered a ten-point prescription for Louisiana recovery. Here’s the “Reader’s Digest Condensed Version”:

1) Draw the map-in other words, there needs to be a set of decisions made regarding exactly where humans will be allowed to control the land, and where the river will have its say.
2) With a new map, reconsider the projects-Houck reminds us that Katrina changed everything, and that projects already designed or underway are probably the wrong solutions to today’s problems.
3) “Free the Mississippi 400 million”-open dams upriver to allow the 400 million tons of silt to do its thing downriver.
4) Free the rivers-the logical extension of point 3. Open the levees appropriately, and let the rivers do their thing.
5) Cut the upstream fertilizers-we discussed this above-fertilizer kills grass, and that kills land. This is where parties outside Louisiana have to step up to the plate-the EPA, the Corps of Engineers, the various States, and maybe even private actors such as the Nature Conservancy.
6) Heal the marsh-if grass holds the mud in place, then grass we must grow. Professor Houck uses a farming analogy-one in which Louisianans would essentially become “land farmers”.
7) Quit making it worse-dredging and filling for canals and subdivisions is the enemy. As we said above, prevention is cheaper than mitigation.
8) Make room for Nature-consolidate human development within protected areas to create room for natural restoration to work.
9) Dare to think retreat-Houck advocates completely removing residential development from threatened areas, through buyouts. He makes the argument that businesses can be sustained, however.
10) Global warming is real-Professor Houck suggests denial here just makes the problem much, much worse.

We have already seen the consequences of our desire to develop every inch of shoreline, and not just in Louisiana, but all along the Gulf Coast. And we already are beginning to understand that this is truly a national problem.

But if we hope to keep South Louisiana as a functioning economy or even as an above water piece of real estate, we better start talking about national solutions that help Nature’s solutions.

On Responding To Oil, Or, “Disaster, Or Emergency, Or Neither?”

We’re now into day way too many of the BP oil spill, and the President has just yesterday been down on the Louisiana coast—again.

There have been suggestions that the Administration should take action to essentially push BP out of the way and take over the work itself, particularly as it relates to the cleanup.

It may have even occurred to you that an official declaration of some sort might be needed, in order to bring the full power of the Feds into play.

That’s some good thinking, but before we go jumping right into declaring things we better understand the law, because if we don’t, we could actually make things worse.

It was a deathbed scene, but the director was not satisfied with the hero’s acting.

“Come on”, he cried, “Put more life in your dying!”

--From “10,000 Jokes, Toasts, & Stories”, Lewis and Faye Copeland, Editors

So right off the bat, we need to give credit to Francis X. McCarthy of the Congressional Research Service, who put together “Potential Stafford Act Declarations for the Gulf Coast Oil Spill: Issues for Congress”, which will, unless indicated otherwise, be our source for today’s discussion, and the most excellent Steven Aftergood, who, among his other good works, sends me those “Secrecy News” emails that should be coming to every one of your inboxes as well.

And with that said, let’s get to work:

In a situation such as the oil spill, the Stafford Act, which is the law governing emergency and disaster responses, gives the President a fairly limited number of options: he can do nothing, leaving BP as the lead party in the response, or he can declare, on his own initiative, that an “emergency” exists. He can also agree to respond if the Governor of a State declares that an emergency or “major disaster” has occurred within that State.

So which means what?

From the Stafford Act itself (42 USC 5122):

“(1) Emergency.— “Emergency” means any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, Federal assistance is needed to supplement State and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States.

(2) Major disaster.— “Major disaster” means any natural catastrophe (including any hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, winddriven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought), or, regardless of cause, any fire, flood, or explosion, in any part of the United States, which in the determination of the President causes damage of sufficient severity and magnitude to warrant major disaster assistance under this chapter to supplement the efforts and available resources of States, local governments, and disaster relief organizations in alleviating the damage, loss, hardship, or suffering caused thereby.”

It’s not just terminology, either…there are functional differences as well.

The biggest: if the President declares an emergency, on his own initiative, FEMA will not be permitted to offer Disaster Unemployment Assistance, which is a program that does just what you think it does for people like South Louisiana’s fishers and tourism workers. If the Governor declares a disaster, on the other hand, such assistance would become available.

Other “disaster-only” assistance would include paying for “emergency protective measures”; this means that FEMA, and not the State, would bear some of the cost of building the proposed “barrier islands” that might keep some of the oil off the coast.

For most emergency and disaster assistance the Federal “cost share” is 75%; it can be modified up to 100% if the President so declares.

So far, so good…but there is another side to this story.

In the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident the then-Governor of Alaska, Steve Cowper, tried, twice, to get George Bush the First to declare a disaster. He was unwilling to do so.

The reasoning behind this was that…well, how about if I just let you hear the story firsthand:

“The Department of Justice opposed a declaration of disaster by then-President George H. W. Bush on the basis that it might impact adversely the case of the United States against Exxon. When asked at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) why no declaration of disaster had occurred, the then-Acting General Counsel of FEMA, George Watson, said on the record that he had issued a legal opinion stating that no declaration of an oil spill could be made under the Stafford Act.

When Sen. Stevens asked for a copy of the opinion, Mr. Watson said he would furnish one. Instead of an opinion, a somewhat garbled statement was given by FEMA’s congressional liaison for insertion in the record. The statement basically concluded that where a parallel statutory scheme offered both compensation and better litigation rights to the United States than the Stafford Act, then the president would not declare a disaster or emergency.”

The money for these responses comes from the Disaster Relief Fund. This Fund is not part of the annual Federal Budget appropriations process; instead, it’s refilled, as the need arises, by supplemental appropriations.

The Fund is almost empty at the moment, and even before this event it was predicted that the money could run out by this month. (It’s estimated that the Fund is spending about $350 million a month to mitigate the various disasters currently on the books, with only about $600 million in the Fund as of May.)

A supplemental appropriations bill, part of which would provide $5.1 billion for the Fund, to cover past and future expenses, is before Congress right now (H.R. 4899).

The Senate wants its version of the bill adopted (it’s not just a FEMA bill: there’s lots of juicy defense appropriations in there as well, among other allocations), and they’ve asked for a House/Senate conference. Almost a third of the Senate is on the Conference Committee, so you know there are a lot of negotiations ahead—unless, suddenly, a new sense of urgency is felt by all parties involved.

(Fun Fact: There was a large cleanup of spilled oil associated with Katrina, to the tune of about 9 million gallons.)

We need to stop, for just a moment, and talk about two other potential sources of cleanup funding out there: the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund (OSLTF), and, possibly, the EPA’s Superfund.

If BP should turn out to be unwilling to pay the billings being submitted by the US Government for cleanup and other expenses, or if the Company denies claims from third parties that the Feds think should be paid, then the Trust Fund is available to pay claims while collection actions against BP are underway.

However…the Fund can only pay claims associated with oil pollution. Claims related to pollution caused by other hazardous materials…like dispersant…cannot be paid by this Fund.

The normal solution would be to charge those expenses to the Superfund, but there’s a “however” attached to that. Long story short, the Superfund cannot pay for claims related to pollution in bodies of water.

There’s more: the OSLTF is limited, by law, to $1 billion, maximum, per incident, with only $500 million of that available for the natural resources cleanup associated with that incident.

(Fun Fact Number Two: There is such a thing as microwaveable haggis.)

At about this point, you’re probably thinking that we should declare something pretty much right away.

Not so fast there, Gentle Reader…because here’s the “you could make things worse” part:

If the Stafford Act is invoked, and an emergency or disaster is declared:

“Any person who intentionally causes a condition for which Federal assistance is provided under this Act or under any other Federal law as a result of a declaration of a major disaster or emergency under this Act shall be liable to the United States for the reasonable costs incurred by the United States in responding to such disaster or emergency to the extent that such costs are attributable to the intentional act or omission of such person which caused such condition.”

And therein lies the trouble.

If BP can successfully argue that they did not intentionally spill that oil, then the ability to recover money spent cleaning it up would be severely limited, if not entirely lost.

So as of this morning, that’s where we’re at: there’s a belief that BP is not doing all it can to fix this, or to clean it up, and that one way to get around that problem would be for the Federal Government to invoke emergency powers and take over the cleanup itself.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 provides some capability in this area, through the Disaster Relief Fund, but the money available for the task is limited, and probably insufficient for the work that needs to be done.

And while the Stafford Act provides additional authorities of its own, there is a real possibility that invoking the Act will let BP off the hook for the giant legal liability that appears to be facing them down today.

It’s a really tough situation for a national leader, and if you ever wondered why Barack Obama’s hair seems a bit grayer lately…well, this might be part of the reason why.

To Attract Tourists, Louisiana Governor Announces Free Oil Giveaway

Baton Rouge (FNS)—Facing both a massive oil slick from a sunken offshore drilling platform and a second year of declining tourism revenues along the Louisiana Gulf Coast caused by high gas prices, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal today introduced a new tourism promotion that he reports is going to “...make lemons into lemonade”.

Jindal, flanked by British Petroleum's Director of Marketing Dick Timoneous and the Executive Director of the Louisiana State Tourism Board, Jenna Talia, announced that the “All The Oil You Can Carry Festival” would officially commence today just east of New Orleans, and last at least through the month of May.

According to Jindal, "Louisiana produces 30 percent to 40 percent of the nation's oil and gas off our coast. It is certainly good for our economy...It is also good for the nation...We're sending tens of billions of dollars overseas, often to countries who are not friendly to us...this is one of the reasons we've got such a large trade deficit...and today, we’re doing something about it."

Executive Director Talia told the assembled journalists that Louisiana Highway 90 will be closed at Fort Macomb for the weekend so that families can fan out across The Rigolets and gather their own free samples of BP oil.

“It’s going to be a great event” Talia said, “we have vendors and craftspeople setting up on the bridge who will be selling lots of gear so that families can scoop the oil up and take it home. We’ll also be selling lots of local food, there‘s local music...and of course, the bar will be open.”

Members of the public will be able to rent boats or launch their own from any of several convenient locations nearby.

“In this time of economic challenges, we here at BP are happy to provide free samples of our product to the public” Timoneous was quoted as saying. “This oil is perfectly suitable for home heating use, and we would encourage members of the public to gather just as much as they can carry and take it with them.”

BP is promoting the event as the largest giveaway of free product in the company’s history; the current estimate is that more than 11 million free gallons of oil will be distributed by the end of next month.

Boaters are encouraged to participate, and the Alligator Bend coastline, just to the southeast of the Fort, promises particularly rich opportunities for “gathering samples”, as Mr. Timoneous put it.

CSX Railroad is also involved in the festivities, and they promise to close their track across The Rigolets so that those without boats can hike in and gather oil directly from the water at the Rigolets Pass Bridge.

“As a Member of Congress I introduced the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act of 2006, which was intended to provide more opportunities for Americans to access the oil off our Continental Shelf”, Governor Jindal told the reporters, “and with this cooperative effort in direct-to-consumer distribution between BP and the State of Louisiana that vision has finally been realized. Laissez les bon temps roulez!”

Ms. Talia continued the press availability by reminding members of the public that “Although there are no hotels in the immediate area, there is lots of new open land made available since Hurricane Katrina that can be used for camping...and if you’re driving a diesel rig, you can probably grab a shovel and fill up right here at the Fort....and even take some home besides.”

She also noted that the opportunities to celebrate weren't limited to just this one area: "It's entirely possible that the Festival will be expanded to include much of Louisiana's coastline before the month is out, and we would encourage tourists to follow our website for additional announcements."

She ended the event by asking what is probably going to be the question of the year for Louisianans: “What could possibly be better for this State’s tourism industry than millions of gallons of free oil laying around, just waiting to be picked up by anyone who wants it?”

On Saving Louisiana, Or, Send Me Your Mud, Yearning To Be Free

Let’s begin today’s discussion with a quick thought experiment.

What is the single most important thing necessary to ensure the survival of the State of Louisiana?

Improved government administration?
More and better levees?
The success of the “Road Home” project?

I submit it is none of these.

The single most important factor determining the future of the State of Louisiana is mud.

That’s right, mud.

Were you aware that the entire State consists of mud? When you look at a geologic map, there is nothing to be seen but sedimentary deposits dating back to the Cambrian period.

And the mud, it is a-sinking.

Katrina took out more than 57 square miles of land in Plaquemines Parish alone. That former land is now the Gulf of Mexico.

The Army Corps of Engineers has maps of the Mississippi river from 1998. When you get to the page, click on map 141. What you see is a portion of Plaquemines Parish. (Here’s the same place on Google Maps.)

Notice almost the entire map area consists of water, canals, and marsh. There’s only two narrow strips of solid ground evident. Now let’s pull out a bit. There’s just about nothing in the image but sinking ground. Now pull out just a little bit further, and guess what-there’s New Orleans.

This was the area of Louisiana most affected by Katrina.

It’s now time for you to meet Professor Oliver A. Houck. His essay “Can We Save New Orleans?”, published in the Tulane Law Journal, will be central to the remainder of this conversation, and I would encourage you in the strongest terms to take the time to read the document.

Here are some of the issues he brings to light:

--There is no consensus on what is to be done-should the emphasis be on maximizing the amount of developable land; or should the emphasis be on maximizing opportunities for natural processes to replenish the bayous? These are two mutually exclusive goals, and Houck suggests development is winning.

--The Federal government is responsible for maintaining navigation on the Mississippi, but flood control is managed locally. As a result of this and the huge amounts of money that are spread around through levee and other water control project construction, politics has more influence on the management process than science and inter-jurisdictional coordination.

--Environmental pollution-especially fertilizer runoffs-kill the marsh grasses that hold the soil together. As a result, the process of saving Louisiana starts in South Dakota, and is therefore a national, not just a State problem.

--It is easier to calculate the cost-benefit of industrial and commercial activity than the cost-benefit of saving lives-and safety advocates have fewer lobbyists.

--Money spent now, on non-development rights, for example, will be cheaper than money spent later on reconstruction or remediation.

And the most important of all:

--It’s the constant movement of silt down the river that makes it possible for there to be a Louisiana-and America’s history of “taming” the Mississippi has nearly brought that process to a stop. The River carried 400 million tons a year of silt 150 years ago, Houck reports, and today carries only 80 million. Without that “new” land to deposit in the Delta, there is no way to offset the erosion to the Gulf of Mexico.

That’s not the only reason the State is sinking, however. Pumping drinking water from aquifers has an impact, and the expansion of the ocean caused by global warming does, too. Even the weight of the levees themselves on the soft soil is affecting the situation.

Professor Houck, being a “fix-it” kind of analyst, has offered a ten-point prescription for Louisiana recovery. Here’s the “Reader’s Digest Condensed Version”:

1) Draw the map-in other words, there needs to be a set of decisions made regarding exactly where humans will be allowed to control the land, and where the river will have its say.
2) With a new map, reconsider the projects-Houck reminds us that Katrina changed everything, and that projects already designed or underway are probably the wrong solutions to today’s problems.
3) “Free the Mississippi 400 million”-open dams upriver to allow the 400 million tons of silt to do its thing downriver.
4) Free the rivers-the logical extension of point 3. Open the levees appropriately, and let the rivers do their thing.
5) Cut the upstream fertilizers-we discussed this above-fertilizer kills grass, and that kills land. This is where parties outside Louisiana have to step up to the plate-the EPA, the Corps of Engineers, the various States, and maybe even private actors such as the Nature Conservancy.
6) Heal the marsh-if grass holds the mud in place, then grass we must grow. Professor Houck uses a farming analogy-one in which Louisianans would essentially become “land farmers”.
7) Quit making it worse-dredging and filling for canals and subdivisions is the enemy. As we said above, prevention is cheaper than mitigation.
8) Make room for Nature-consolidate human development within protected areas to create room for natural restoration to work.
9) Dare to think retreat-Houck advocates completely removing residential development from threatened areas, through buyouts. He makes the argument that businesses can be sustained, however.
10) Global warming is real-Professor Houck suggests denial here just makes the problem much, much worse.

We have already seen the consequences of our desire to develop every inch of shoreline, and not just in Louisiana, but all along the Gulf Coast. And we already are beginning to understand that this is truly a national problem.

But if we hope to keep South Louisiana as a functioning economy or even as an above water piece of real estate, we better start talking about national solutions that help Nature’s solutions.

On Recovery, Or, A Tale Of Two Louisianas

There have been many stories told, and there will be many stories to tell, of how New Orleans and the communities to the southeast struggle to recover from the hurricanes of 2005.

Before I began researching this story, I assumed that pattern would be the same across the entire Louisiana Gulf Coast.

But I was wrong.

Have you ever heard of Houma, Louisiana? Houma is the largest city in Terrebonne Parish. (For those not familiar, a parish is the equivalent of a county.)

To set the stage, here’s some background information about the Parish:

--In an uncommon move, the City and Parish governments were combined some time back.

--When you think of Cajun culture, think Terrebonne Parish. The southern Parish is bayou country, and there are lots of hunting and fishing “camps” in the area. So many bayous, in fact, that the “Swamp Thing” comics are set here.

--The city of Houma officially sits 13 feet above sea level. Portions of the southern Parish are, literally, sea bottom. More about that later.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did affect the Parish, but not in ways you might expect. And the biggest change in the Parish might turn out to be more or less unrelated to the hurricanes.

Jean Bomvillain, the Parish’s tax assessor, told me in a March 1st telephone interview that there’s been a continuous period of growth following the storms which continues today. He also told me that since the storms:

--The tax base has gone up-assessed value in the Parish is up $40 million, in fact.

--Sales tax revenues for 2006 were $9 million higher than 2005.

--There are an additional 3000 new housing units that did not exist before the storm. Despite this, he reports a housing shortage.

--About half of the 20,000 residents of New Orleans and the other southeast Parishes that temporarily came to the Houma area have remained to become permanent residents. As a result, Terrebonne Parish’s population is about 110,000, he estimates. FedStats estimated about 107,000 in 2005.

--He does not see an enormous impact from the problems surrounding the “Road Home” program in the Parish. That’s not a unanimous opinion, however.

The reason for the difference between Terrebonne Parish and Orleans Parish (or Jefferson, or Plaquemines, for that matter) is that the hurricanes really did very little damage here. The nearby Vermilion Parish school district site has images that will give you an idea of what the local flooding looked like afterward.

There have been some permanent problems. Real estate has been affected in the southern Parish quite profoundly. Here’s what Mr. Bomvillain, the tax assessor, told me:

--There was an 8 foot storm surge, and as a result, to obtain insurance, houses in the affected area must be raised 9 feet. Let’s not just gloss over that-try to imagine raising your house and sitting it on a 9 foot tall platform sometime. Now consider what that will do to your property value.

--The coastline is sinking. Mr. Bomvillain reminded me that Louisiana loses “the entire State of New Jersey every year” to this phenomenon. I asked the assessor if this land had to be removed from the parish tax rolls.

It does not. It becomes the sea bottom portion of the Parish. The value of the land is appropriately reduced, I was told; but because the parish collects oil drilling royalties from offshore activities, they can’t just “lose” (my quotes, not his) the properties that become submerged.

As a result of all this, the character of the parish will change. Already something close to 90% of local construction activity is occurring around Houma, and it’s not likely the southern portions of the Parish will return to previous levels of hunting, fishing, shrimping, or its other businesses anytime soon, if ever.

On the other hand, if you talk to someone in Houma in a retail or service business, things are pretty good.

Particularly if you talk to Mary Strickland, over at “A Stitch In Time”. She told me that Katrina really wasn’t a big deal in Houma, and that Rita was the one that affected them. Even at that, she reported to me that she was only closed for 5 days, while Houma waited for power to be restored from other parts of the State. “50 miles makes a difference” was how she explained what happened.

How about her business? She told me that immediately after Katrina she did a substantial business in dry cleaning and restoring evacuee’s clothing and belongings. But she also told me the new residents have had a positive impact on her bottom line. There are new businesses opening in Houma that relocated from New Orleans.

She told me about other changes to the city: she mentioned that she perceives an increase in crime, especially robbery and burglary. She also noted that apartment rents have increased “phenomenally”. On the other hand, she told me her shop’s rent had not changed, remaining “$1 a square foot”.

She made two other comments that I found most interesting.

She said Louisiana “needs to do the Dutch thing” to stop coastal erosion.
In the very next sentence she said: ”if Louisiana would get 50% of our oil revenue (referring to royalties from offshore drilling) we wouldn’t have to ask the government for help” paying for shoreline improvements.

As I said at the top of the story, the recovery issues in New Orleans will, for obvious reasons, hold our attention for some time to come.

But below the surface there is a second Louisiana recovery-a Louisiana who, at the moment, has mostly escaped one disaster, and feels optimism about the future; but worries about another disaster that they know will eventually come if they can’t stop it.