Action Plan for New Orleans: The New American City. January 11, 2006. Bring New Orleans Back Commission: Urban Planning Committee. http://www.bringneworleansback.org/Portals/BringNewOrleansBack/Resources/Urban%20Planning%20Action%20Plan%20Final%20Report.pdf. This plan goes into a lot of areas of the rebuilding of New Orleans. One part of the report includes a flood and stormwater protection plan with immediate and long-term goals. Plans include moving the canal pumps to the lake, restoring perimeter levees and building up a system of internal levees with their own pumping systems, restoring the coast and wetlands, constructing an Industrial Canal lock system, closing off the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet by permanent or temporary, operable means. The suggestions the plan makes about the responsibility of the levees are creating a single, unified levee district, putting the Corps of engineers in charge of maintenance, operation, funding, and building, and having an independent body oversee the work of the Corps. The plan gives a solid, realistic vision for the future of New Orleans.

Axtman, Kris. “Search for Weak Link in Big Easy’s Levees”. Christian Science Monitor. 30 December 2005: 16 pars. Online. Available: <http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1230/p03s03-sten.html>. 15 September 2006. Axtman looks mainly at the bad engineering that caused the levee break at the 17^th Street Canal. The article gives a general map of the positions of the levees in and around New Orleans and the points at which the levees broke. Solutions include adding pumps and redoing the drainage system.

Battjes, Jurjen A., Robert G. Bea, Gordon P. Boutwell, Janathan D. Bray, Brian D. Collins, Robert A. Dalrymple, Leslie F. Harder, John R. Headland, Michael S. Inamine, Robert E. Kayen, Rebecca A. Kuhr, Peter G. Nicholson, Juan M. Pestana, Raymond B. Seed, Francisco Silva-Tulla, Rune Storesund, Shigenobu Tanaka, Joseph Wartman, Thomas F. Wolff, R. Lee Wooten, and Thomas F. Zimmie. “Preliminary Report on the Performance of the New Orleans Levee Systems in Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.” National Science Foundation: 17 November 2005. This report investigates the state of the hurricane protection systems in New Orleans before and after the hurricane. Some interesting findings include that many of the levees differed greatly in height from section to section and that the T-walls withstood erosion and the storm surge much better than the I-walls. Overtopping erosion protection and regulation of levy heights would have prevented a lot of problems. The levy system is not redundant. One failure causes the whole system to fail, so in rebuilding New Orleans a new system with some sort of back-up would work better.

Cemper, J.P. Floods in the Valley of the Mississippi. Morgan City, LA: King-Hannaford Co, Inc, 1928. This book records the early history of the levees on the Mississippi near New Orleans up to the twenties, especially concerning the flood of 1912 and its effects. The first levees were built in 1727 by the French, but they were inadequate because engineers were adhering to a false scientific principle which said that more flow would pick up more sediment and, thus, create a larger channel preventing flooding.

Dean, Cornelia. “Time to Move the Mississippi, Experts Say.” New York Times 19 September 2006. Scientists have finally agreed with nature that it’s time for the Mississippi to change its course and go down the Atchafalaya. It would help rebuild New Orleans coastline and, thus, protect against future flooding. Negative side affects would include huge engineering problems to get industrial boats to the Gulf and the changing environment of many of the towns below New Orleans. But this move would prevent the loss of all the rich sediment that gets pushed out to sea. Even though, this has been decided as the best course of action, it will take many years and a lot of planning and money to happen.

Deslatte, Melinda. “Blanco Outlines Levee Consolidation Plans.” The Associated Press 25 January 2006. The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, is making a move to consolidate the levee boards of southeastern Louisiana into one, making all property held currently by the levee boards property of the state. She is also trying to change the appointing procedure so that more qualified people with the interest of the common good in mind will be on the board. The main reason for this switch is the safety of the people in the areas affected.

Eichenseher, Tasha. “GULF RECOVERY: With federal cash at stake, La. lawmakers scurry to consolidate levee boards.” Greenwire 16 February 2006. The levee boards are involved in too many interests outside of managing the levees, such as real estate investments. If they were consolidated in two boards, each staffed with representatives from each district and qualified engineers, their focus would be solely on the levees. A con of consolidation is that smaller districts might be ignored and denied proportionate funding. Two separate bills of consolidation are in Congress, which will have to decide on a compromise between the two.

Harrison, Robert W. “Flood Control in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.” Southern Economic Journal. 17.2 (1950): 11 pages. This journal article discusses the of the levee governance in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta. It started out in the early 1800s a purely independent. Each farmer went about it his own way. Then the floods of 1844 and 1849 brought the government into passing some laws to protect the farmland that brought so much wealth to the state. Locals created some of their own levee boards, but the government was recognizing the necessity of protecting the Mississippi at a transportation highway. After 1882 federal funds were used for the flood control program, but the federal government really stepped in after the flood in 1827 and passed the first flood control act.

H.R.4650 National Levee Safety Program Act of 2006 (Reported in House). July 28, 2006.  This bill in the house of representatives sets up standards and protocol for the inspection and inventory of the levees, an interagency committee on levee safety with a National Levee Safety Advisory Board, and a National levee safety program. This is a good start, but more needs to be done on the local level. The New Orleans levee boards need to be consolidated. The job seems to large for one advisory board to handle.

Katrina Graphics. Online. Available: http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/. 21 September 2006. This website is managed by the Times-Picayune, the local New Orleans newspaper. It has a comprehensive list of all the Katrina-related graphics that were used in the paper. It includes maps showing population distribution, levee breaks and flooding, and blueprints for future solutions. 

Levee. Online. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levees. 14 September 2006. Wikipedia gives an extensive basic overview of levees and goes into detail about natural and artifical levess and levee failures. It also provides links to related websites and topics.

Levees.org. Online. Available: http://www.levees.org/main.php. 22 September 2006.  This is the website of grass roots group that holds the Army Corps of Engineers responsible for the levee failures that flooded part of New Orleans. Their goal is too take action toward hold the Corps accountable through grass roots movements, such as letter writing campaigns. There is an archive of newspaper articles looking specifically at the role of the Corps in New Orleans.

Marris, Emma. “‘Human Error’ Doomed New Orleans Levees.” Nature 3 November 2005. Human-error and possibly “malfeasance” were huge factors in the breaking of the levees. Upon review after Hurricane Katrina it was found that many of the levees were not built like the plans said they should have been. Once the weakest sections of the levees collapsed, it caused a reaction that led to other parts breaking. The locally run levy boards have not done an adequate job governing the levees, and the Army Corps of Engineers is severely understaffed and underfunded. 

Marris, Emma. “Katrina Boosts Call for Conservation.” Nature 7 September 2005. If the coast and barrier islands around the Gulf area had not been so eroded away from previous storms and lack of new sediment from the Mississippi River, the towns along the Gulf and New Orleans would have fared better. The coastal protection could have taken the brunt of a lot of the energy and waves of the storm. Communities around the Indian Ocean that had well established coral reefs and coastal protection survived the tsunami much better than communities without. Congress, however, is slow to give funding for environmental restoration.

Marshall, Brian. What is a Levee? Online. Available: http://science.howstuffworks.com/levee.htm. 14 September 2006. This is a good very basic definition of a levee. A levee is an earthen structure built along a river or body of water to keep it from flooding the surrounding area. It briefly mentions the levees in Mississippi and those in the Netherlands.

McPhee, John. The Control of Nature. New York City: Farrar; Straus & Giroux, 1989. McPhee looks at controversial environmental issues, including the Mississippi River. One of the chapters focuses on the Atchafalaya, the river that Mississippi is trying to change its course toward, but it is prevented by man-made levees and dams. He tells it in first person through the medium of a story with a very descriptive style. McPhee looks at the social, economic, and environmental issues associated with the redirection of the Mississippi.

McQuaid, John. Sophisticated Flood Defenses as a National Priority for the Dutch. Newhouse News Service. Nov, 20, 2005. http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mcquaid112105a.html. One reason that flood protection is taken much more seriously in the Netherlands than New Orleans is that it is a national problem there, not just a regional one. 65% of the country would be under water if not for the barriers and dikes. After a disasterous flood in 1953, the Dutch decided to go in a whole new direction with their flood protection and build barriers across open waterways that can remain open most of the time, but close in times of danger. A huge advantage of putting barriers across open waterways is shortening the coastline, so the levees would be put under less stress and, therefore, be less likely to break. A drawback is that the ecosystems can be negatively affected. The U.S. would benefit greatly from adopting the mindset of the Dutch, who consider flood protection a high priority.

“Q&A: Drilling for Truth in New Orleans: a geologist’s story.” Nature 1 June 2006: 556-557. This is an interview with David Rogers, a geologist who investigated the damage in New Orleans. The biggest problems where the levees broke were caused by cutting corners and bad engineering years ago. The geology under the levees is very poor. It’s basically unstable much that allows too much seepage to get. Metal sheet piles should have been placed at correct depths underneath the levees to make the surface impermeable, but many of them were not at the right depth because engineers had been told to average it out instead of taking precise measurements that could have saved New Orleans. The people in place that make this decisions do not have enough technical knowledge to make the right choices.

Riley, Don T. “Corps to Rebuild Levees, Public Trust.” ENR 27 March 2006: 47. This is a statement from Major General, an officer in the Army Corps of Engineers. He says the Corps takes responsibility for the hurricane protection system in New Orleans and will repair it by June 1, 2006 and all permanent hurricane protections will be in place by September 2007. They are investigating what caused the levee failures where the levees were not overtopped and will work with the levee boards.

Schwartz, John. “Panel Urges Corps to Study Oversight of Levees.” New York Times 20 February 2006. The Corps does not want to get into looking into the New Orleans levee boards and wants to stay on the technical side of the issue. There have been moves to consolidate the levee boards throughout Louisiana, so more uniform standards of construction and safety can be reached. The “organizational chaos” of the levee boards is a major factor in the disaster.

Teschler, Leland. “Privatize the Army Corps of Engineers.” Machine Design 12 January 2006: 21. This article is an argument to privatize the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps did an inadequate job building the levees, as evidenced by the breakage of the 17^th street canal. They spend way too much time on inefficient, wasteful projects, and there is no one really willing to take responsibility. In the new system, local governments would give the work to private companies who would be directly responsible for their work.

“The Gathering Storm.” Nature 1 June 2006: 549. Science needs to be much more involved in the policy making and planning processes. Hurricane Katrina is a storm that has been predicted for a long time, and yet people in power with the ability to prepare for it did nothing. Also disconcerting, is that more storms like this could happen. Because of global warming, the temperature of the oceans is rising, making the conditions for much more powerful storms.

Whittle, Andrew. Personal Interview. 20 September 2006.  Professor Whittle spoke to the Terrascope class about the levee failures during Hurricane Katrina and the future hurricane protection systems. Levees that are just overtopped are considered to have performed well and served in their function; however, the levee at London Avenue and the 17^th Street Canal broke, without being overtopped. The 17^th Street Canal had been built on top of very unstable sand. Suggestions to prevent future flooding are to get rid of the canals and to restore the coastal marshes and the barrier islands.

Whittle's PowerPoint click here.