Looking into the future the Pelican feeding its young from a self-induced wound in its own breast (as depicted, mysteriously, on the state flag of Louisiana) is accepted as an appropriate symbol of both self-sacrifice and rebirth. Through his selfless efforts, man is raised from the slavery of ignorance to the condition of freedom conferred by wisdom. Given the current state of affairs in Louisiana, one hopes that the understanding of the Pelican as a symbol shall point the way towards a new consciousness of ourselves as a whole, and lead us to face our futures with strength, grace, wisdom and faith, to learn from our mistakes and carry our successes and zest for living to future generations.

---

Press Release: SOWL Falsely Accused of "Green Genocide" After Hurricane Katrina by Enjoining Corps Barrier Plan in 1977

Save Our Wetlands, Inc. (SOWL) is exonerated by a GAO report from September 28, 2005 of this accusation. This report comes from the United States Government Accountability Office. Testimony before Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development – Committee on Appropriations – House of Representatives, Army Corps of Engineers, Lake Pontchartrain and Vicinity Hurricane Protection Project. The GAO report states the barriers, if constructed, would not have prevented New Orleans from flooding from Hurricane Katrina and if constructed the flooding in New Orleans would have been worse.

On September 8, 2005, FrontPageMagazine.com ran a story entitled New Orleans: A Green Genocide by Michael Tremoglie and Ben Johnson. FrontPageMagazine.com claimed that “as radical environmentalist continue to blame the ferocity of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on President Bush’s ecological politics, a mainstream Louisiana media outlet inadvertently disclosed a shocking fact that environmentalist activists were responsible for spiking a plan that may have saved New Orleans. Decades ago, “the Green Left- pursuing its agenda of valuing wetlands and topographical ‘diversity’ over human life – sued the present Army Corps of Engineers from building flood gates that would have prevented significant flooding that resulted from Hurricane Katrina”.

The article goes on about how Save Our Wetlands, Inc. (SOWL) by enjoining these “floodgate barriers” committed murder upon the people of New Orleans all for some fish over human lives. The article falsely states that Hurricane Katrina pushed Lake Pontchartrain over the flood walls… The spilling water then undermined the walls, and they toppled.”

SOWL has also documented how United Radio Broadcasters of New Orleans Clear Channel Radio, through its Las Vegas office Clear Channel Broadcasting, Inc (in between pushing Mayor Ray Nagin’s New Orleans-Las Vegas style gambling proposal), is also propagating the lies and falsehood that environmentalists (“Tree Huggers”) by enjoining the Corps’ Barriers in 1977 are responsible for flooding New Orleans.

Clear Channel pro corporate- spin doctor, propaganda tool, with offices in Texas and Las Vegas, is also spreading the lies and falsehood that these Corps Barriers stopped by the environmentalists in 1977, would have prevented the storm surge that “topped the levees” and flooded New Orleans.

All of this is simply not true. On September 28, 2005, the GAO in response to the United States Government Accountability Office issued a report confirming and substantiating what SOWL has been saying – that if the Corps’ barriers had been constructed, the flooding in New Orleans would have been worse. If the Corps’ Barrier Plan were allowed to proceed then the 28,000 New Orleans East wetland Orlandia Subdivision would have been constructed. Sixty thousand (60,000) more new homes would have been added in New Orleans East. Hurricane Katrina would have flooded 60,000 more homes. God only knows how many lives SOWL has saved? Yet the spin-docs spread the lies that SOWL kills not saves human lives. That SOWL loves swamps more than people – loves fish over humans - that kind of garbage and so many people eat and swallow this hate stench like a strawberry sno-ball.

Joe Towers was another party out spreading the lie that New Orleans “would have been saved if SOWL had not enjoined the Corps’ Barriers in 1977.” Joe Towers was the Corps’ attorney during the notorious Eden Isle scandal of the 1970’s. SOWL met with the New Orleans FBI in 1975, and complained against Joe Towers, permitting his client Corps to aid and to abet the illegal and criminal diking, damming and draining of 5,200 acres of navigable wetlands – estuaries on the North Shores of Lake Pontchartrain, Slidell, LA for the Eden Isle subdivision. SOWL’s prophetic concern was also Corps’ promotion of housing in flood plains. Hurricane Katrina has obliterated Eden Isles, Oak Harbor and Lakeshore Village Estates. Tons of discarded garbage and flooded homes and damaged lives now sit in heaps over what was once an economic natural, sustainable resource gold mine and a hurricane buffer to the town of Slidell.

Joe Towers unsubstantiated and untrue comments were not only an attack against SOWL, but also against the United States District Court Judge Charles J. Schwartz, Jr., who issued the injunction against the Corps Barrier Plan. Joe Towers falsely accused Judge Schwartz of condemning New Orleans for some shrimp and crabs.

We now know today that the breach of the 17th Street and London Avenue Canals were not because of a storm surge or overflow, as the Corps originally stated. The collapse occurred because of the soil and a structural design defect. And as can be found on the SOWL website, the Corps was notified of the weakness at the 17th Street Canal levee in the 1990’s by the contractor Pittman Construction, which was operated by Al Pittman and Gerald Gallinghouse.

The Corps is also responsible for the destructive MRGO and thousands of oil company canals that have so greatly eroded the wetlands of St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes.