Challenging the Corps – How can we corral these camo-clad bureaucrats?

So I’ve heard there’s an ‘ancient Chinese curse’ that may apply to my life right now: “May you live in interesting times.” Of course ‘interesting’ is a bit of an understatement. ‘Insane’ hits closer to the mark. How’s this?

• We had a bit of a levee problem down here (close to 60% failure rate in the storm-affected area).
• We have a bit of an eroding coastal wetland problem down here (background loss rates of a football field’s worth of wetlands becomes open water every ½ an hour, but in the 18 hours of Katrina we lost an estimated 120 square miles!)

Now here’s the interesting or insane part: The same agency that screwed up the levee thing is in charge of fixing the wetlands thing. Speaking of which, I’ve got a really nice 2 bed/2 bath camelback shotgun for sale Uptown – high ground, for now.

I’m being ridiculous here, of course. Why, it’s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of both, and heck, they’re the Army – who would believe they couldn’t get the job done? They built Mississippi River levees, and those massive mountains are amazing, and still very solid.

Recently though, the Corps’ had some bad press. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer found some experts questioning the type of dirt the Corps’ is using to rebuild the failed MRGO levees (turns out it’s the same dirt that failed spectacularly 6 months ago). The Times-Picayune has reported and opined on the Corps engineering failure at the first Mississippi River diversion project, Davis Pond. The success of the Louisiana Coastal Area plan to restore our wetlands hinges on projects such as Davis Pond. Ill tideings indeed.

So it’s with a mixture of terror and excitement that I greet the news that the Corps is asking for an ongoing and significant amount of money to move forward with coastal wetlands restoration projects geared towards protecting New Orleans wetlands. I’m all for restoring our wetlands, but how are we going to ensure the Corps actually puts the money to work in an effective way? It seems odd to be questioning the Corps’ effectiveness. I’ve always thought of the Corps as an incredibly powerful, blunt object. You never questioned whether the hammer blow was going to work, it was more a question of whether you needed the thing wacked. But now it turns out the Corps doesn’t always wack very well. Far more hammered thumbs than I ever expected.

Of course, Louisiana got it’s act together and passed a levee board reform package, which keeps the patronage and corruption from screwing up the multitude of local level boards that used to exist, and kicks all that patronage and corruption to the state level, with a newly created Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority in charge of the graft now. I kid. Kind of.

I was at the CPRA meeting this week in Baton Rouge and was amazed by the Authority’s lack of members from the New Orleans area (mostly agency heads and a few token levee board reps – none from NOLA). Isn’t all this reform due to the fact that NOLA got incredibly screwed up? I didn’t notice CNN broadcasting the floating bodies in Baton Rouge, where most of the CPRA folks seem to hail from.

But why be parochial about the Authority, as long as they’re taking their duties seriously and wielding the state’s power judiciously, right? Hey – they had two Corps’ presentations on the agenda for this week’s meeting, so ample opportunity to get to the bottom of the significant questions being raised. Randy Hanchey, former Assistant Secretary at the Department of Natural Resources and now primary staffer for the CPRA got right into it and pointed out how hard it was to work with the Corps, that they weren’t treating the state as an equal partner, and weren’t sharing information well. Didn’t really illuminate what kind of info the state was looking for, but it was clear he was annoyed. Kind of like when the principle won’t show his bathroom pass to the hall monitor.

As to the two Corps presentations: one was on the study for a category 5 plan, and the other was an update on repairing the levees to already authorized levels (cat 3). Different guys headed up either presentation. The first was Dan Hitchings director of the New Orleans Reconstruction Task Force Hope, and he clearly expected to get lambasted and beat up by the CPRA members. He didn’t. The next Corps presentation was by Colonel Wagenaar, who marched in wearing camouflaged fatigues and immediately got red in the face, dressing down the CPRA for questioning his commitment to Louisiana’s coast by questioning the Corps effectiveness.

Here’s the outrageous thing, besides Hanchey’s whining, NO ONE went after the Corps. If this is the official state body that’s making sure our levees are up to snuff and our coast is restored, I want to see fireworks, I want to hear shouting, I want dogged determined to get to the bottom of things. I don’t want to see a bunch of simpering politicos falling all over each other to be the most grateful pol on the panel. I don’t know if you saw Anderson Cooper yell at Sen. Mary Landrieu for thanking people in Katrina’s aftermath while dead bodies lay in the streets, but I felt like Mr. Cooper would have been a welcome addition to this CPRA meeting, bringing a bit of reality to these Authority members.

I don’t want to give the impression that there was no passion or purpose in attendance – two elements stood out:

1. Mark Davis, the Executive Director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisianago here to take action and support that suggestion). and the head of a subcommittee for the Governor’s Coastal Commission (full disclosure – also a board member of the GRN) presented suggested language to close down the MRGO (
2. Representative Ken Odinet (not a CPRA member, and most recently in the spotlight for his role as the skunk at the ‘One Levee Board’ garden party, was incredibly passionate about shutting down the MRGO.

On the whole, the CPRA meeting was shockingly devoid of passion and purpose, and top heavy with polite politicos who seem oblivious to the fact that we are living in interesting times, and that we’re desperate for leadership willing to ask the tough questions, and challenge the blunt object that is the Corps to ensure South Louisiana’s safety and sustainability.

Aaron Viles is the GRN's Campaign Director