Crank Up the Radio

Can you reboot this thing?

Or at least link over to streaming media from NPR--Talk of the Nation featured Robert Bea, Ivor van Heerden, and David E. Daniel discussing the Independent Levee Investigation Team report and related concerns here on the cusp of the hurricane season.

This is worth a listen. In particular, van Heerden makes a number of valid points as to the feasibility of living along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, which is refreshing. I sometimes get the impression that the rest of the country thinks of the Gret Stet as a burdensome welfare case (I said as much in a comment over at Suspect Device), and this is unfortunately confirmed by disgusting posts like this--or this (dealt with at TPM's After the Levees thread...Blundell also takes apart this tripe)...anyway, van Heerden, near the end of the segment, notes several ADVANTAGES we have over the often mentioned model of the Netherlands, namely, wetlands, barrier islands, and river silts. With proper planning and management, protection of low-lying coastal or near coastal regions is possible...and desirable: Louisiana's coastal and near coastal regions are certainly not mere locations for vanity housing--or charity cases--but in fact are quite productive. Agriculture, industry, commercial and sport fishing are four things I can think of off the top of my head that take advantage of the existing regional conditions.

This isn't a matter of charity to "prop up a dying city." It's a committment that a country makes to its citizens.

The next disaster, be it natural, or the result of government negligence (the levees were a federal government project that failed due to poor planning, construction and maintenence on the part of the federal government) could be almost anywhere in the country. I wonder if the pro-abandonment folks will feel the same if they're the ones affected next time?