NOLA Sinking and CBS Hopes For Ratings

CBS is again at the heart of a controversial story. This time, it's whether it is even appropriate to rebuild and repopulate New Orleans. CBS has located a professor who says that New Orleans is doomed. Well, it is doomed if the current political leadership remains as is. However, despite the fact that the local political situation has made the situation far worse than it should have been, the professor, Timothy M. Kusky, brings up an issue that serious scientists must examine in greater detail:

New Orleans is located on a coastal delta basin up to 10 feet below sea level and still sinking as much as one inch per year. Much of the city could be 18 feet below sea level by the end of the century, or even more if sea level rise becomes significant.

The city has other problems of location. To protect communities along the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers built a 2,000 mile long system of levees that help prevent river flood waters surging from the channel and inundating low lying areas. However, the levees also channel sediments that normally get deposited on the flood plain and delta far out into the Gulf of Mexico, causing the land surface of the delta south of New Orleans to sink below sea level at an alarming rate. A total land area the size of Manhattan is disappearing every year, meaning that New Orleans will be right on the Gulf Coast by the end of the century.

The projected setting of the city in 2100 is in a hole up to 18 feet below sea level directly on the hurricane-prone coast. The city will look like a fish tank battered by coastal waves, surrounded by 50- to 100-foot-high seawalls that are barely able to protect it from hurricanes that are only as strong as Katrina. Such a city is untenable, and we as a nation need to face this reality.

I don't know about you, but I don't have a time machine. I don't know what tomorrow will bring, but I do know that if corrupt and inept politicians remain in charge of the process, New Orleans will never rebuilt properly, and the safety of those living there will be compromised.

Now, the New Orleans politicians are downright pissed at the possibility that this story is going to air on 60 Minutes tonite. They want to stop the airing of this program because of its potentially devastating impact on reconstruction aid and the speed of rebuilding.

I have no doubt that this complex issue will be bowdlerized by 60 Minutes and people will be left with the impression that New Orleans should be returned to the sea.

UPDATE 11/21/2005:
Paul at Wizbang also notes the 60 Minutes story and expects the usual fake but accurate reporting.