08 December 2006

MRGO Must Go: The Report


I was looking all over for this thing earlier in the week: a PDF version of the MRGO Must Go: A Guide for the Army Corps' Congressionally-Directed Closure of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

Many things mentioned by Junior Rodriguez at the De-Authorization hearing are included in the report.

Credit to Kinch at Building Big Easy providing the link I couldn't find for anything. Check out this 19 page document . . .


TAGS: Katrina, New Orleans, NOLA, MRGO, St. Bernard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

4 Comments:

At December 08, 2006 9:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is a sobering view

 
At December 09, 2006 6:32 PM, Blogger Tim said...

This document proposes that the MRGO made Katrina worse, which athough popular opinion think it did, it did not. The authors did absolutely zero modelling, and selectively quoted others who also did no modelling while ignoring the results of actual, scientific studies. I'm not arguing to save the MRGO, but if you think putting a plug at the south end of it like Junior Rodriguez suggests, you will be severly disappointed. The fact is that a huge storm surge rolled right over all the levees and marsh and the MRGO was virtually insignificant. That Funnel Effect that this report talks about is a result of the layout of the hurricane protection levees and also has nothing to do with the MRGO. Plug, gate or fill the MRGO if you want to, but the Funnel Effect will remain! The environmentalists really need to do more homework before they put out such documents.

Peace,

Tim

 
At December 10, 2006 9:37 AM, Blogger Seymour D. Fair said...

tim:

I agree with you on the impace of MRGO in relation the amount of surge. I think there is no question however the digging of the canal was a mistake mainly bc of the introduction of salt water to once-viable marshlands.

 
At December 18, 2006 10:09 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not that simple Tim. The MRGO didn't make the surge higher in St. Bernard, it just made a lot less marsh for the surge to have to go through before it got to the houses. That and the MRGO levees that were made out of sand (might as well have been paper mache)is what flooded St. Bernard.

The MRGO did make the Lake P. surge somewhat higher, by allowing Lake B. surge into Lake P. Whether it made a difference or the floodwalls were so bad they would have failed anyway is up for debate.

 

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