Current Proposal - Geology
		Divert the Mississippi River below New Orleans to redirect some of the sediment load being deposited off the continental shelf towards land-starved wetlands along the eastern coast Update all projects and calculations to occur in the coastal Louisiana region with the current universal vertical datum (North American Vertical Datum of 1988) because many studies and calculations still use either the outdated Vertical Datum of 1929 or the variable and regionally calculated value of sea level as a vertical reference point, conducing the great variation in geological calculations that occurs today (Dokka, 2005; Tornqvist, Gonzalez, Newsom, van der Borg, de Jong, Kurnik, 2004). In 2001, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told Congress that “Problems with historic surveys, land movement, and sea level rise have made the current vertical geodetic control in Louisiana obsolete, inaccurate, and unable to ensure safety” (Dokka, 2005). We wish to modernize current geological benchmark data by support of projects such as the Louisiana Height Modernization Project, which currently works to update and add new benchmarks by now taking into account subsidence rates, GPS data, and gravity observations (National Geodetic Survey 2006) With accurate universal geological data, we hope to increase the accuracy of disaster risk calculations and prevention methods. The effects of subsidence must be taken into account when deciding which areas will or will not be victims of severe flooding due to storm surge because the areas may be at a different and possibly much lower elevation in the future. Levees and roads meant to be evacuation routes that were built on subsiding ground will lower in elevation as well, which also must be taken into account when flooding occurs because both structures could eventually be unable to stand above certain elevations of flood waters in the future (Dokka 2005).