Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina New Orleans Amy E. Lesen, Ph.D....
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Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina
New Orleans
Amy E. Lesen, Ph.D.Dillard University, New Orleans, LA
andPratt Institute, Brooklyn, NYC
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City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain
• 1722 first levee built by French• 1750s French engineers build levees higher and
higher• Early 1800s, after LA purchase, clear economic
value• 1846 LA state engineer warns about flood risks• Huge flood of 1849, levees breached• 1850:Levees-only policy, city engineers• Levees breached 4 times 1849-1874• 1920, N.O. is 14th largest U.S. city• Huge flood of 1927; 700,000 homeless
– End of levees-only policy, spillways and reservoirs
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City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain
• 1930s to 1970s– Beginning of major wetland loss to development– Spillways built, industrial canals built– 1965, Hurricane Betsy
• 1988 New Orleans is #1 U.S. port in tonnage handled
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City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain
• 2005: LA disappearing wetlands: extensively documented by scientists
• Up to 40 sq miles per year– US Army Corps channeling of the Mississippi
River for shipping– Construction of flood-control levees along
the river to protect New Orleans– Canals built by the oil and gas industry– Natural subsidence– Rising sea levels
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Disaster and hurricane preparedness in Louisiana
• Large role for scientists• 1998: Coast 2050 Plan for Louisiana
– Links coastal health to storm protection– January 2004: Louisiana Governor Personally Asks
Bush to Fund Louisiana Coastal Restoration Project
– 2005, Proposed budget sliced by Bush admin
• 2004: Hurricane Pam simulation– Louisiana State University scientists– Predicated the post-Katrina scenario– Implementation “incomplete”
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“Should a Class 5 hurricane blow water over the [Lake Pontchartrain] levees, the city could find itself under water for months. Evacuation would face serious bottlenecks due to the limited number of escape routes across the water-logged terrain…Recent popular accounts paint a dire picture and suggest that federal authorities might not be willing to make the investment necessary that cannot afford to protect itself.” (Colten 2005)
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Environmental Justice in New Orleans
• Louisiana: “Cancer Alley,” chemical industry, oil industry
• Long history of grass roots environmental justice work and activism, environmental health issues
• Documentation of correlation with sea level of neighborhoods and race, all across the south
Role of practicing scientists?
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Role of science post-Katrina?
• Civil engineering• Geology• Coastal ecology, wetlands ecology
• “Feasibility” of neighborhoods• Flood maps?
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2000
1949
1920
1880
1722
Legend
city of history
source: Campanella 2002, ULI Analysis
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source: USGS
predicted land loss 1932-2050
water at the city gates
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elevation
St. Bernard Parish
Jefferson Parish Orleans
Parish
source: USGS
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flood inundation
source: USGS
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owner occupied housing
source: 2000 US Census
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Success - an intense & urgent range of
individual to collective actions.
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“Greening” New Orleans and the Gulf coast
post-Katrina
• Bullard, 2005: Will it be racially, socially, or economically equitable?
• Community initiatives: Holy Cross neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward
• Global Green project
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• The tension between city building and the environmental setting in NOLA- Colten, 2005. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature.
- Colten, 2001. Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs: Centuries of Change.