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Will the next President tell the truth about our levees?
By Lauren | September 5, 2008
With Hurricanes Gustav, Hannah and Ike making headlines – and throwing a monkey wrench into the Republican Convention – this week, it’s an ideal time to ask how the next President will address the condition of the levees that were designed to protect our nation’s cities from flooding. We all remember the disaster that struck New Orleans in 2005, when Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,100 people and destroyed over 160,000 homes. What Americans may not realize, however, is that our government apparently knew long before Katrina that New Orleans’ levees might fail in the event of a major hurricane.
According to Jamison Foser of MediaMatters for America, in the years leading up to Katrina the Bush Administration and Congress knowingly denied full funding for hurricane preparation and flood control, repeatedly shortchanging budget requests from the Army Corps of Engineers. And the Corps hasn’t always gotten it right, either. In April of 2006, the commander of the Army Corps of Engineers admitted in a Senate hearing that the Corps failed to recognize that floodwalls atop New Orleans’ 17th Street Canal levee could pull loose and erode the earthen barriers below, acknowledging that this oversight “could be called a design failure.” A lawsuit recently filed on behalf of Katrina flood victims alleges that the Corps has been on notice since 1958 that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a navigation canal excavated by the Corps from the wetlands near New Orleans, posed a serious threat to human life and property. As the New Orleans Times-Picayune observed, “no one can say they didn’t see it coming.”
But in the days following the flood, Foser argues that “President Bush acted as though the breach of the levees was an unforseeable fluke occurrence.” A couple of days after Katrina hit, President Bush reportedly told Diane Sawyer of Good Morning America, “I don’t think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees,” neglecting to mention that the Army Corps of Engineers had repeatedly requested (and been denied) the money to enlarge the levees and improve drainage. Who was he kidding? If the Corps thought New Orleans was at risk, the Administration must have known it. (To read Foser’s article, go to http://mediamatters.org/items/printable/200509020001.)
People whose lives depend on America’s levee system need to know the truth about whatever dangers they face. Even if you’re one of those folks who blame the citizens of New Orleans for their post-Katrina sufferings on the theory that anyone who chooses to live below sea level shouldn’t be surprised when flood waters rush in, keep in mind that New Orleans isn’t the only city in America that faces potential flooding; remember what happened in the Midwest this summer. If the current Administration knew that New Orleans’ levees were inadequate and said nothing, can we trust the next Administration to tell us if levees and floodwalls elsewhere in America aren’t strong enough?
Would it be ethical for the next President to sidestep the question of whether the nation’s system of levees is adequate? If Americans are threatened with the loss of life and property, would it be ethical for the President to take no action? If hard budgetary choices require the President to deny the Army Corps of Engineers full funding to repair and upgrade the nation’s levees, how much should the President disclose to the American people? Has your candidate taken a position on the state of the nation’s levees and, if so, are you okay with it? You decide.
Topics: Presidential Campaign, Social Ethics, ethics |