约炮视频 CEO: Katrina鈥檚 Lessons Still Haven鈥檛 Sunk In
A decade after the devastating hurricane, New Orleans is still more vulnerable than it should be. David Yarnold explains what still needs to be done.
It鈥檚 a known fact that every three miles of wetland can reduce flooding by about one foot, 约炮视频 Louisiana Executive Director Doug Meffert said on "Wake Up With Al鈥 this week.
So a decade after the havoc wrecked by Hurricane Katrina, why haven鈥檛 we learned our lesson and committed to establishing more protective wetlands in the area? If you ask 约炮视频 CEO David Yarnold, the answer is pretty simple: 鈥淢oney. And political commitment,鈥 he writes in an .
Instead, wetlands are constantly disappearing from Louisiana鈥檚 coastline鈥斺攖hanks largely to oil and gas wells and shipping byways in the area, ProPublica's report found. But if wetlands were expanded instead, these critical coastal habitats could protect the city and its people in the (almost inevitable) event of another catastrophic storm.
The lack of restoration is not for lack of know-how. 鈥溤寂谑悠 has been experimenting with using dredges to build marsh in depleted wetlands,鈥 Yarnold writes. 鈥淲ithin a matter of months, the marsh grasses and other plants spring to life and start spreading. And important waterbirds, such as Black-necked Stilts, Greater Yellowlegs, and Tricolored Herons, and marsh birds, such as King Rails, Seaside Sparrows, and Marsh Wrens, start returning.鈥
Of course, these kinds of projects (and there are ) take money鈥攍ots of it (the estimated cost is in the tens of billions).
So what can we do? According to Yarnold, the place to start is with the $8.7 billion the state will receive from BP (thanks to the area鈥檚 other recent catastrophe). And even with that source guaranteed, 鈥榯he challenge will be making sure every cent of that money goes to coastal restoration and isn't diverted to other state needs,鈥 he writes.
Not only do we need to do this right, we need to do it fast: 鈥淚f there's one thing we all learned from Katrina, it's that we waited too long,鈥 Yarnold writes. 鈥淲e have to invest in serious restoration of our coasts now. This is not just a Louisiana problem: It's the challenge of virtually every country on the globe that has a coastline.鈥
Read the entire op-ed .