So the Corps of Engineers has fucked us again, this time denying the permit to build protective barrier islands off the Louisiana coast:
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will not allow land barriers to be built to protect the state’s coastline, Plaquemines Parish Billy Nungesser told The Lens today.
“They turned it down,” Nungesser said. “They denied the plan to do the barrier islands, so I don’t know, so we’ll have to come up with something else. We’re going to plan B, but I don’t know what plan B is.”
This is the same type of project that folks have said would help rebuild the wetlands and protect the people living in southern Louisiana from flood surges and hurricanes.
I suspect the real reason it was denied was money. BP won’t pay for it. The federal government doesn’t want to pay for it. So it doesn’t happen.
I got in a nice drunken argument with Dave over the weekend about this. I don’t know how anyone who has paid a speck of attention to the Gulf Coast in the past five years can say that the federal government has any attention of helping. They have repeatedly hung us out to dry (or drown). Dave insisted that surely they are doing the best they that they can, that they have the best minds around working on the problem.
I agree that they have the best minds working on the problem. Unfortunately for us, the problem as the government sees it is saving money and maintaining their cozy relationship with the oil companies. They will do everything they can to make sure that they fix the problem.