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Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina New Orleans

Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina New Orleans. Amy E. Lesen, Ph.D. Dillard University, New Orleans, LA and Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NYC. City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain. 1722 first levee built by French

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Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina New Orleans

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  1. Scientists versus the local community: A case study in post-Katrina New Orleans Amy E. Lesen, Ph.D. Dillard University, New Orleans, LA and Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NYC

  2. City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain • 1722 first levee built by French • 1750s French engineers build levees higher and higher • Early 1800s, after LA purchase, clear economic value • 1846 LA state engineer warns about flood risks • Huge flood of 1849, levees breached • 1850:Levees-only policy, city engineers • Levees breached 4 times 1849-1874 • 1920, N.O. is 14th largest U.S. city • Huge flood of 1927; 700,000 homeless • End of levees-only policy, spillways and reservoirs

  3. City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain • 1930s to 1970s • Beginning of major wetland loss to development • Spillways built, industrial canals built • 1965, Hurricane Betsy • 1988 New Orleans is #1 U.S. port in tonnage handled

  4. City-building in New Orleans: A port city on a floodplain • 2005: LA disappearing wetlands: extensively documented by scientists • Up to 40 sq miles per year • US Army Corps channeling of the Mississippi River for shipping • Construction of flood-control levees along the river to protect New Orleans • Canals built by the oil and gas industry • Natural subsidence • Rising sea levels

  5. Disaster and hurricane preparedness in Louisiana • Large role for scientists • 1998: Coast 2050 Plan for Louisiana • Links coastal health to storm protection • January 2004: Louisiana Governor Personally Asks Bush to Fund Louisiana Coastal Restoration Project • 2005, Proposed budget sliced by Bush admin • 2004: Hurricane Pam simulation • Louisiana State University scientists • Predicated the post-Katrina scenario • Implementation “incomplete”

  6. “Should a Class 5 hurricane blow water over the [Lake Pontchartrain] levees, the city could find itself under water for months. Evacuation would face serious bottlenecks due to the limited number of escape routes across the water-logged terrain…Recent popular accounts paint a dire picture and suggest that federal authorities might not be willing to make the investment necessary that cannot afford to protect itself.” (Colten 2005)

  7. Environmental Justice in New Orleans • Louisiana: “Cancer Alley,” chemical industry, oil industry • Long history of grass roots environmental justice work and activism, environmental health issues • Documentation of correlation with sea level of neighborhoods and race, all across the south Role of practicing scientists?

  8. Role of science post-Katrina? • Civil engineering • Geology • Coastal ecology, wetlands ecology • “Feasibility” of neighborhoods • Flood maps?

  9. source: Campanella 2002, ULI Analysis Legend 1722 1880 1920 1949 2000 city of history

  10. source: USGS predicted land loss 1932-2050 water at the city gates

  11. source: USGS St. Bernard Parish Jefferson Parish Orleans Parish elevation

  12. source: USGS flood inundation

  13. source: 2000 US Census owner occupied housing

  14. Success - an intense & urgent range of individual to collective actions.

  15. “Greening” New Orleans and the Gulf coastpost-Katrina • Bullard, 2005: Will it be racially, socially, or economically equitable? • Community initiatives: Holy Cross neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward • Global Green project

  16. The tension between city building and the environmental setting in NOLA - Colten, 2005. An Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature. - Colten, 2001. Transforming New Orleans and Its Environs: Centuries of Change.

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