Our Hearts Are Heavy

Lets not let research and facts get in the way of this discussion:

http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/damfailure/txt/fema-L263.txt
http://www.deq.state.ms.us/MDEQ.nsf/page/L&W_FAQs_for_Dam_Safety?OpenDocument
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/publications/ToccoaFIBReport/body5.html
http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/sw/dsveget.htm
http://www.engineering.usu.edu/uwrl/www/faculty/DSB/ancold03estimating.pdf
http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/damfailure/pdf/fema-L263.pdf
http://www.gbra.org/files/pdf/hzap/section15.pdf
http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/agguides/agengin/g01548.htm
http://dnrc.mt.gov/About_Us/publications/damnews05.pdf
http://www.luresext.edu/aquaculture/muddyponds.htm
http://www.in.gov/dnr/water/dam_levee/inspection_man/pdf/Part4-FactSheets/03-03EarthDamFailures.pdf
http://new.damsafety.org/layout/subsection.aspx?groupid=14&contentid=376
http://www.uaex.edu/aquaculture2/FSA/Small%20scale%20catfish%20production/FSA9074.htm
http://www.planning.co.medina.oh.us/All%20Hazard%20&%20Flood%20Mitigation%20Study/Chapter%20one/dam_failure.htm
http://www.hawaii.gov/dlnr/reports/dam-inspections/Aahoaka-HI00063.pdf
http://www.ohiodnr.com/water/pubs/fs_div/fctsht28.htm

I could go on, and on, and on, and on, but a simple google search using "dam failure" and "trees" will provide a plethora of information in additon to the above as to why trees should not be planted on levees or dams.

Granted, trees did not cause the failure of the New Orleans levees - this time. Anyone that thinks that there is not going to be "another time" is sadly mistaken. New Orleans actually "missed the bullet" with Katrina, with little consolation to those whose lives were shattered by the storm. The potential in the future is much worse.

Again, for those wanting to jump on the "let's bash the Corps of Engineers bandwagon", the Corps showed almost 30 years ago, before anyone else, what the impact of a Category 3 or higher storm surge would be on New Orleans, primarily as a result of the MRGO, which indeed proved to be one of the biggest problems in the storm surge as a result of Katrina. Unfortunately, Congress, not the Corps, decided that the risk was not worth the cost. Lee Butler, a colleague of mine, was the principal investigator in the original hydrodynamic storm surge modeling study that showed the potential disaster coming New Orleans' way as a result of studies conducted at Waterways Experiment Station, located here in Vicksburg, where I have worked for the last 20 years.

http://www.nola.com/weblogs/print.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/print081406.html
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=32209&dcn=todaysnews

This message was edited Jul 16, 2006 12:49 PM

This certainly has been an interesting thread to read. I do have a few more coments/observations/questions.

Penn_Pete, as a result of the massive flooding back in 1993, the Corps did change the way they dealt with the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their flood control methods. They have removed many earthen levees in rural/farmland areas to allow for more natural flooding and thus allowing some of the flood waters to be absorbed by flooded fields and crop lands. Of course this is bad for the farmers who own the land, but better for the higher populated areas and perhaps the river(I believe the Missouri River did change course in some areas after those floods also). They also moved many levees farther away from the river as well as made the new levees bigger near high population areas. I think their new plans are better for the river and the people in the long run. But I understand the Corps has been involved in some very dubious endeavors. I think most people in the Corps are good people trying to do good things, but politicians and others(possibly higher ups in the Corps) sometimes make the decisions on what the Corps should be doing etc. Just my take on what I've seen.

Also, I agree with the idea that trees on levees and dams will potentially create real problems and possibly lead to failure. But, I wonder how close to the base of a dam or levee can a tree still cause a potential problem? I'm sure it depends somewhat on the size of the dam or levee. If the dam or levee is as big as the one in the photo, how close does a tree have to be?

Lastly, Guy wrote "Bottom line: Trees did not cause the levee failures -- bad engineering (or lax construction supervision) did." But I think it was even more complex than that, from what I've heard/read. I can't recall exactly who did this post Katrina survey, but I believe it was Louisiana Tech(I'll try to find the source). They found that many areas of the NO metro area, including several areas with levees built on them, were sinking at a much faster rate than previously thought. The result was that some areas of the levees had sunk nearly 3 feet since they were built and thus they provided even less protection than the category 3 hurricane protection that was purported. So, even the "hydrodynamic storm surge modeling study" that Copperbaron mentioned didn't take this into account, because it was unknown when they did that study.

It seems to me that what really caused all of this is, that a city was built on a flood plain(although it appears the oldest part of the city was built on the highest ground) and then the periodic flooding was stopped with the building of levees and thus stopping the deposition of silt to the flood plain, which is how the soil level of the flood plain was maintained. So we are left with an area which is below the "normal" water levels of all of the major bodies of water around it, so whenever any levee breaks it fills up like the bowl that it is and this "bowl" is still sinking.(in the long term an untenable position I think) So, I don't think bad engineering and/or bad contstruction of levees is what caused all of this. It looks like it definitely contributed though(oh yeah, and I think Katrina helped). I think it's bad city planning(probably due to ignorance not bad intentions), lack of foresite about what the nature of flood plains and swamps are(and how they sink/settle when you stop silt deposition) (again probably due to ignorance since NO was founded way back in 1718). And now it seems that the people and the wildlife(the trees in the photo as well as the animals, etc.) suffer from it all. I hope that wasn't too political.

This message was edited Jul 17, 2006 1:59 PM

K-man makes a lot of sense to me, and we basically are on the same page or at least have a lot of overlap (as does Pete). I had read some of the same things, but could not recall the details and would be hard pressed now to source them. My main concern is the odd preoccupation with piping and "planting trees on the levees," which is not even of issue here.

Ptero, ya know I dearly luv ya, but why quote so many sources that are not germane to the question? Irrelevant research and facts are just that: irrelevant. Many of us know you have a strong engineering background and we all agree with you on the piping issue. The piping problem is known to every beer-swilling pond builder in America -- it's not rocket science, and no one is suggesting planting trees on levees. But go back and look at the original post and the photo. The trees were not on levees, and they originally were permitted by the USCOE. Besides being an engineer, you should be one of the few in your profession with a broad enough background to also know that piping should not be a factor here, due to basic root physiology.

If the USCOE can come up with a reason for their knee-jerk reaction, let's hear it. And if they can tell us why they attacked a PERMITTED planting done years ago by volunteers, without even doing a little PR or holding a hearing in advance, let's hear that too. LiveOakLady, please let us know how the USCOE responds to the inquiries. Meanwhile, I hope they have suspended the destruction.

Guy S.

The trees have all been cut and 3 to 4 feet "stumps" have been left. Just enough for someone to now impale himself on one. I do not think any of the trees were larger than perhaps 2 to 4 feet in girth, so you can imagine what it looks like--a bunch of sticks dotting the Park as reminders of what was.
The Corps has moved on to New Orleans where they plan to demolish about 24 very large live oaks. They are not on a levee or on the berm. People have been calling me because I am chairman of the Live Oak Society and I feel so awful when I have to say "there is nothing that can be done to save them."
Perhaps tomorrow I will have the heart to take a photo. This is one I took recently. Can you imagine the size of the roots of these trees?

Guy, that's pretty much what I mean. If there is a reason, then there is a reason. But if some higher up thought of that as something to do, then how did he/she arrive at that conclusion?

Kman, you point out the new way things were done after the disasters of the early 90's. Most of those things were not the Corps ideas, they were forced to change. Congress appropriated money to buy out whole towns, people voted to move. The Corps maintained during the hearings that with more money they could build higher wider levees.

In the late fall of 2004, Scientific American had a long article concerning NO and a hurricane. The people who set up the exercise (FEMA?) gave it a ficticious name (Pam I think) and ran a program as to what would happen. Massive flooding was predicted. The Ponchatrain problem was predicted, almost to the inch of flooding that would result. This was almost a full year before Katrina. The pumps that empty the caverns under the city were predicted to fail. Everybody was involved in the mock-up. The political establishment was in, the Corps, the oil industry, everybody. They all went away vowing to change their programs to suit the predicted reality.

The politicos pretended to fund it, the oil/gas people vowed to restore wetlands to mitigate the damage, and the city promised to come up with a better evacuation plan. They all asked for more money, knowing full well that their funding requests would be doubtful The Corps vowed to build better levees. Always, higher, wider levees. There is subsidence, and it is more than they predicted, true. But with almost a year's notice, everybody went back to same old same old.

I don't think the Corps has any more reason to be excoriated than anybody else, and I have never advocated that. But they are a bureaucracy, and inertia is the thing they do best. I am very familiar with federal bureaucrats, and they can be made to do things different, but to call it change might be stretching it. Sending out crews to cut down all the trees without finding out if they are a problem, if clearing them is a solution, or if the levees will eventually get hollowed out is as bad as doing nothing and wasting more resources.

I have dial-up and a slow computer, but I bet if New Orleans and hurricane Pam are googled, there would be as many links to post as ptero.

Can you get Harry and Boudreaux to go after them? The Mayor? Sheila? Landreaux? Boggs? You know all the buttons you need to push. I think the USCOE and the pond scum who approved or directed their actions here should have some serious questions to face over this, and they had better be able to justify it for some reason other than what we can see in your photos. What a shame they couldn't have been stopped until everything was sorted out and reviewed.

If anyone else here still tries to defend the USCOE as being above reproach, tell them what happened to your old home place. Many of us probably know some similar horror stories. There are plenty of fine USCOE people, but any agency is only as good as its worst administrator.

Guy S.

Guy, I think I will tell my personal story here.
In March of 1973 there was a knock on my parents' door. They were 79 and 80 at the time. They were told they had 72 hours to vacate their house and property because the Corps was coming through with an emergency levee. They were located on the Great River Road in Montz, Louisiana. Some 43 other families got the same knock among them being my elderly aunt, my brother and his six children, my sister...the church, the school, the grocery store and mechanics shop.... in other words most of the small town.
My father's ancestral plantation home, built in the 1820's of solid cypress timbers, was bulldozed to the ground with some of the family furniture still in it. He was awarded a total of $52,000 for it along with 15 acres of land taken.
The Corps had agreed to wait until noon to bulldoze the outer buildings but instead bulldozed them in the middle of the night. In one of the buildings were my brothers' military trunks of World War II with all their mementos including two Purple Hearts. My grandfather (born in 1840) had also been a cooper and builder and had beautiful tools which my father cherished. They went with the bulldozer. The beautiful oak that my swing hung on....and, on and on..... My father died a few years later, probably with a broken heart. I now own a part of the remainder of the plantation and one of the houses that my father managed to move before the bulldozers hit. Laws are different now and communication is split second so under my watch there will be no 72 hour warning without a fight.
The levee that the Corps said needed replacing immediately is still there and solid as a rock. I walk on it all the time to take pictures of the Mississippi.
I know that the Corps has done many good things but personally I know of some very not-so-good things. Through the years I have worked with them on environmental issues and even won a case to save Old Dickory, an ancient oak.
Billions of dollars have been poured into the Corps coffers by Louisiana legislators. In fact, here on my computer table is a marble coaster saying "Groundbreaking March 22, 1991--Westwego to Harvey Canal Hurricane Protection Project". Guess what flooded during Katrina. Guess what area the local officials are pleading with the Corps about--yep, one and the same.
I think I have worn this thread out, but before I shut it down I do want to go out tomorrow and get a picture of the stumps along Linear Park.

Guy,

You also know that I respect you and value your opinions, but, in my opinion, you are simply wrong on this issue (and, believe me, I am not trying to be an apologist for the USACE - Lord knows I have initimate knowledge of the colossal bamboozles, screwups, turf wars, beaurocratic boobs, etc. inherent in any Federal agency and, in particular, the USACE). The entire southern portion of Lake Ponchartrain is separated from New Orleans by a levee system, including Jefferson Parish, and the photo you are looking at is part of the levee system. The horses are coming down a more steeply sloped portion of the levee to its base where the trees are planted. As liveoaklady stated in her original post, they needed permission from the levee board and the USACE in order to plant the trees on the levee in the first place, and, make no mistake about it, they are planted on a portion of the levee. As I stated before, none of the earthen levees, of which these are a part of, failed during Katrina and Rita.

That said, Katrina did not subject the earthen levees in Jefferson Parish along the southern bank of Lake Ponchartrain to the full onslaught of a category 5 hurricane with a 30+' storm surge along with additional waves of 15+' above the storm surge. The trees are currently a size which would probably not affect the integrity of the levees had the full force of a category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans, emphasis on the word probably, but I really don't know. One needs to keep in mind that the levees are not constructed for just the next 10, 50, 100, etc. years. They are constructed to protect New Orleans far into the future.

I hold out the possibility that I could be completely wrong with regards to the trees planted on the levee. They may never have an impact on the structural integrity of the levees. But the only question that should be asked and answered is, are you willing to bet potentially a 1000+ lives at some time in the future, long after you have gone on to your rewards, along with billions of dollars in associated damages that you are correct and I am wrong? In terms of risk analysis and the cost associated with improving the current status of the levees, this action, which acknowledgly grieves many members of this forum and tree lovers everywhere, I submit, is a no-brainer.

The Corps has decided not to roll the dice in this instance, no matter how loaded they might be in favor of liveoaklady's and your view. I will leave it at that.

This message was edited Jul 17, 2006 11:56 AM

The USACOE has announced that it cannot meet the deadlines it gave to Jefferson Parish and New Orleans for repair and reconstruction of the levees. The local public officials cannot even get them to return phone calls regarding trees or anything else.
I went out this morning to see the cut trees and how they would have affected the "integrity of the levee." What a strange phrase.
It was 94 degrees with high humidity. In this area the levee is constructed in two sections with a "shelf". This little Park within Linear Park was created about 20 yards from the beginning of the "shelf" slope. The Levee Board even built a gazebo (see concrete posts at left in photo) for joggers/walkers/bikers/nature lovers to sit and enjoy the view. It was created with full blessings of the Corps and the local Levee Board by an elderly couple. They erected bird houses which I noticed had nests in them. It won several state awards for Civic Beautification and Wildlife Preservation.
I looked long and hard at the stumps and am thinking what I can hang on them.

Copperbaron said that "the Corps has decided not to roll the dice on this one". They've been rolling the dice here for the past fifty years with very high stakes known as human lives. Very appropriate phrase.

By the way, Copperbaron--tomorrow I am going to take a photo of the 17th Street Canal levee so you can see the earth.

After having worked outside to near meltdown all morning in the sultry humidity of this heat wave, as I look at this again with the calm of daylight and try to remember several years ago when I saw that levee, I think we all are looking at the same photo and seeing different things. I also think we're all not really that far apart on this, as long as my old friend Ptero has made it clear he's not granting sainthood to the USCOE.

Rather than argue a debatable point ad infinitum, I'm going to boil my objections down to this: The USCOE should have been up front about their reasons and offered opportunity for public challenge and interaction. Right or wrong, it looks like day-jaw-view all over again re running roughshod over LOL's homestead in 1973.

Guy S.