Saving the fish bowl

Congratulations 60 Minutes! I salute you for presenting "New Orleans Is Sinking."

New Orleanians were starting to complain about the lack of national press attention to the ongoing tragedy here. Finally, a major press organization went down to New Orleans to do more than a fluff piece like this afternoon's pathetic NPR story about how one New Orleans family is going to celebrate Thanksgiving.

60 Minutes spent time in the lower Ninth Ward talking to residents in the most devastated part of New Orleans (largely forgotten since the national press left). 60 Minutes interviewed Greg Meffert, the Chief of Technology, who threw down a gauntlet at the Bush administration and Congress, challenging them to show the world that we (the United States) are what we say we are, and inciting them to rebuild New Orleans. 60 Minutes interviewed Mike Centineo, the Director of Safety and Permits, talking about how insane existing building guidelines are, and going into his flooded house where he broke down over the family photos he lost. Despite appeals by Louisiana officials not to show him, 60 Minutes also interviewed Tim Kusky who, at the end of September, wrote a controversial Boston Globe opinion piece in which he painted a grim picture of New Orleans' future:

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.

Andy Kopplin, executive director of Louisiana Recovery Authority, asked CBS to reconsider airing the New Orleans segment, according to the Times-Picayune. I can understand why - Kusky's argument is not that the city should be saved, but that it should be abandoned.

Joining Kopplin in his criticism of Kusky is Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. Boesch disputes Kusky's conclusions, comparing his research to an undergraduate paper full of factual errors and little analysis.

Kusky might be wrong - but his dramatic premonition of what New Orleans will look like in the future has gotten people's attention. For that, he can be thanked. Indeed, this is definitely not the time to avoid hyperbole. We're beyond hyberbole. New Orleans could only be worse if every building were knocked to the ground, because quite frankly, a majority of the buildings in the city are being gutted to the bones, and will have to be, effectively, rebuilt. Through a vast expanse covering most of the city, the dirty water line from flooding can be traced half way up the wall on house after house. Picture 60 to 80 percent of Los Angeles destroyed by a freak Tsunami, or two-thirds of San Francisco leveled to the ground by an earthquake. Nothing could be more surreal. That's New Orleans. It's surreal - beyond comprehension. Unlike other natural disasters, however, New Orleans was flooded not necessarily by the hurricane, but by faulty engineering on levees which, we were told, would hold up to a Category 3 storm. It's a national disgrace that this happened.

Truth be told, the marshes of coastal Louisiana are in serious trouble, and that can only mean worse problems down the road for New Orleans. We still haven't gotten that Category 5 direct hit, but it's out there somewhere.

A less controversial environmental scholar is Shea Penland, director of the Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of New Orleans. His discovery of a high number of "marshballs" in Chalmette, south of New Orleans, is a sign of very sick marshes. The marshballs are actually large clumps of mud, roots, and vegetation - actual pieces of the marshland to the east of New Orleans, an area that leads out to the Gulf of Mexico. A large swath of this area no longer exists. It simply disappeared in Hurricane Katrina's storm surge and wind. The marshes have been weakened by canals and pipeline construction, cutting up Louisiana's wetlands into a multitude of non-contiguous pieces vulnerable to erosion.

Oliver Houck, an environmental law expert at Tulane University, along with a host of other scientists, are saying that Louisiana will have to retreat from the coastline. They're talking about drawing a new map of Louisiana to indicate which of the small towns south of New Orleans will have to be abandoned. It's not a political decision anymore. Mother nature will get the last word.

This isn't just a national disaster, it's a national emergency. All the people who don't get it, and who think we can handle this problem in a business-as-usual mode should be ejected from office immediately. And the press needs to get their asses down here to New Orleans and start covering the vital stories about what is happening here, because, as much as we'd like it, we bloggers just don't get the exposure that forums like 60 Minutes get - although at least we have integrity.

So, again, I salute you 60 Minutes. For all the rest of the corporate money-whoring press, you better shape up or we'll put some gris-gris on you!

We know it's possible. A number of bloggers here all agree that the local Times-Picayune used to be good for nothing more than the club listings. Since Katrina, they've gotten religion and are challenging the status quo. Today, the paper criticized leaders in Washington who find it convenient to ignore the significant economic contribution Louisiana makes to the nation:

Some people in Washington don't seem to remember that. They act as if we are a burden. They act as if we wore our skirts too short and invited trouble.

The paper then called on citizens to reach out to a list of principals in Congress, listing their contact information, and telling readers to "Flood them with mail the way we were flooded by Katrina."

I read in The Advocate about another good attention-getting tactic recently you might consider when you're contacting Congress. Referring to the scenes of people who broke through roofs after rising water forced them into their attics:

Mark Schleifstein, an environmental reporter for The Times-Picayune, jokingly asserted that New Orleanians ought to grab their Sears catalogs, cut out a picture of an ax and send it to their congressmen with this rueful message:

"Please send me this for Christmas if you are not going to rebuild the levees."

Hey, if the federal government is going to shirk its duty to help Louisiana, then we're seceding and keeping all the oil extracted off of our shores.

Take a few minutes each day this week and work your way through that list of contacts, and tell everyone you know how important this is.