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.

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The Aftermath: Corps' Defenses Went Awry

By Jim Barnett
Sept. 18, 2005
Newhouse News Service
Reprinted from: http://www.ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Promoting Growth was No. 1 Goal

Washington --- After Hurricane Betsy flooded New Orleans in 1965, drowning about 50 people, survivors made a promise: never again. At their urging, Congress ordered the Army Corps of Engineers to defend citizens against future storms.

But instead of reinforcing levees at the city's periphery, the corps built an elaborate system stretching miles into uninhabited wetlands. Odd as it seemed to locals, it made sense to the corps.

To justify the project --- estimated in 1978 to cost a then-staggering $409 million --- the corps had to identify an economic benefit. But lives saved didn't count in the corps' equation. So it proposed draining nearby wetlands and highlighted the improvement in property values.

After Katrina and its enormous human toll, critics say the corps should rethink its bottom line approach to hurricane protection. They say the storm exposed flaws in the corps' planning that might blind agency leaders and Congress to solutions that are more effective in saving lives.

"These poor folks who couldn't get out because they didn't have a car, they didn't have much say in this thing," said Bob Stearns, a retired corps economist who has served as a consultant to taxpayer and environmental groups.

Cost-benefit analysis isn't the only consideration that drives corps projects. But it has proved an effective argument in winning precious construction money from Congress.

The post-Betsy project ranked particularly well on the corps' economic scale. It promised a $13-to-$1 return, due largely to its ambitious reach beyond New Orleans' core.

The project called for reinforcing some existing levees. But much of the economic benefit would come from industries that would be protected by two huge new barriers at the entrances to Lake Pontchartrain, the corps said. And new levees east of town would create value by turning wetlands into sites for homes and businesses.

But where the corps adds economic value, critics say, it also creates a perverse incentive for people to put themselves in harm's way: Many people feel safe in settling former flood plains.

Indeed, many of the wetlands the corps helped clear after Betsy were developed into the eastern Orleans Parish neighborhoods that took the brunt of Katrina's flooding, with many homes filled to their rooftops.

Long before Katrina, the agency's approach to guarding New Orleans struck some local leaders as misguided.

On Dec. 30, 1977, Judge Charles Schwartz Jr. halted construction of the lake barriers, saying the corps' study of their environmental impact was inadequate.

The agency also failed to assess costs and benefits of an alternative plan to construct higher levees around New Orleans, Schwartz ruled.

The injunction effectively killed the corps' barrier plan. After Katrina, some critics of environmental laws have cited Schwartz's injunction as evidence that statutes such as the National Environmental Policy Act should be rescinded.

But at a congressional hearing in New Orleans a week after Schwartz's ruling, a freshman Republican named Bob Livingston voiced a practical concern: What was the corps' backup plan to save the city?

Livingston, who would go on to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, had become irked to find that the corps had focused on building levees across open marsh while leaving old levees essentially unimproved.

To Livingston, it wasn't at all clear that the corps had made the most efficient use of public funds. At the hearing, he chided Col. Early Rush III, the corps' chief engineer in New Orleans.

"It would seem to me that if hurricane protection to the people and properties is the paramount importance, that the portion that you would want to complete first would be those levees surrounding inhabited areas rather than those around uninhabited areas," Livingston said. "Would that not be a priority, sir?"

Livingston did not get a satisfactory answer.

But his question now looms large: With tough choices about how to defend a rebuilt New Orleans, what will be the priorities that guide Congress and the corps?

The corps traditionally has focused on property in weighing benefits of hurricane protection simply because its value is easier to measure in dollars than the cost of avoided human suffering, critics say.

These priorities also reflect those of decision makers.

"Who are the stakeholders?" said Stearns, the retired corps economist. "The stakeholders are the public officials, who want to increase the tax base, and the business firms, who want to make more money."

Stearns and others note that economics has made important advances since the corps revised its principles and guidelines in 1983. Economists now have better methods to estimate avoided costs and the value of lives likely to be saved by greater levels of protection.

After Katrina, the corps also should invite outside economists to gauge how well its cost-benefit analysis matches public priorities, said Don Sweeney, a former agency economist.

"There has got to be a better way to evaluate, authorize and fund projects than the clearly broken, highly political mechanism we currently employ," Sweeney said.