Who's Really to Blame for NOLA?

ProfessorBainbridge blogged Maybe the answer is environmentalists and their trial lawyers. The LA Times quasi-buried this story on page 10, but at least they reported it:

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy 40 years ago, Congress approved a massive hurricane barrier to protect New Orleans from storm surges that could inundate the city. But the project, signed into law by President Johnson, was derailed in 1977 by an environmental lawsuit. Now the question is: Could that barrier have protected New Orleans from the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina?

"If we had built the barriers, New Orleans would not be flooded," said Joseph Towers, the retired chief counsel for the Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans district. Tower's view is endorsed by a former key senator, along with academic experts, who say a hurricane barrier is the only way to control the powerful storm surges that enter Lake Pontchartrain and threaten the city. Other experts are less sure, saying the barrier would have been no match for Katrina.

The group in question is called Save Our Wetlands. Their website brags:

While politicians talk, SOWL sues! SOWL has been involved in countless lawsuits involving Lake Ponchartrain on every subject....from the New Orleans Levee Board Airport Expansion Plan, Bucktown Marina Expansion Plan, New Orleans Mosquito Control Drainage schemes in wetlands of New Orleans East, Eden Isle Subdivision on the north shores of Lake Ponchartrain, Orlanda Subdivision, Corps of Engineers Hurricane Barrier Project, shell dredging in Lake Ponchartrain, Waterford Nuclear Plant...to the Marathon Oil Company canals in the wetlands of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes. ... SOWL has always fought bitterly against the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

I wonder if they'll acknowledge any responsibility for what happened to New Orleans. (Not that I'll be holding my breath.) I also sort of wonder how the "blame Bush first, last, and always" crowd will defend these guys.

They will probably find one scientist that will say it would not have done the job, and then they will hype what he says, and the MSM will accept it.

There's plenty of blame to be shared out on a bipartisan basis, but after reading this story and checking out Save Our Wetlands website, in my opinion they deserve a good-sized chunk of it.

BTW, since they're such a litigious bunch, I better preemptively remind them that opinion is protected by the First Amendment! Ollman v. Evans, 750 F.2d 970 (D.C. Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1127 (1985).