It's a whodunnit with any number of motives (money, greed, need and relationships) and even a bad guy who has no alibi. But like the classic unsolved mysteries of our time, it has lent itself to any number of interpretations. Why is New Orleans sinking? Can we fix it before Katrina II?
Today's MSNBC features an article on the gradual sinking of New Orleans:Study: Louisiana slipping slowly into Gulf.
In that article, the change is portrayed in dramatic terms, but the "suspect" for this crime is something no one can change:
The report, which appeared in December’s Geophysical Research Letters, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Geophysical Union, says the bedrock under heavily populated southeast Louisiana is breaking away at a glacial speed — at the pace fingernails grow. The southward movement, the study says, is triggered by deep underground faults slipping under the enormous weight of sediment dumped by the Mississippi River.
Just a few years ago the phenomenon was just as well known, but there was at least one conspicuous suspect in published studies that appears to have disappeared from the "line-up." Here's an excerpt from a 2001 summary from Scientific American:
New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen. The city lies below sea level, in a bowl bordered by levees that fend off Lake Pontchartrain to the north and the Mississippi River to the south and west. And because of a damning confluence of factors, the city is sinking further, putting it at increasing flood risk after even minor storms. The low-lying Mississippi Delta, which buffers the city from the gulf, is also rapidly disappearing. A year from now another 25 to 30 square miles of delta marsh--an area the size of Manhattan--will have vanished. An acre disappears every 24 minutes...In a study funded by the oil and gas industry, Penland documented that the industry has caused one third of the delta's land loss.
Geologists admit that there are many reasons why we are losing the barrier islands and in turn, New Orleans. The delta is built by deposits from the erosion of the Mississippi's banks, and the construction of levees has slowed those deposits to almost nothing. The Corps of Engineers deserves blame for misfeasance (in lining the Mississippi with concrete) for malfeasance (in building defective levees) and nonfeasance (in ignoring the signs). The MSNBC report is probably not wrong, just deceptive. Just three years ago there was a consensus that from 1/3 to 1/2 of the problem was due to subsidence due to oil drilling.
Where did that evidence go? Why is it ignored in current articles? Probably, like the evidence for global warming, it's being buried. After all, who wants it brought out in the inevitable post-Katrina lawsuits.
Then there's the guy in the lineup--the nutria. That little rodent has done its own share of damage, chewing at the roots of the plants that hold the barrier islands in place. It's an exotic, and has multiplied without control throughout the bayou. My own prediction: After all the finger pointing is over, the oil guys, the Corps money guys and the engineers will all point their finger to that little rodent.
For an eloquent read on the scientific and personal tragedy of the bayou's disappearance, read Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast by Mike Tidwell.