Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Sinking levee shows difficulty of protecting New Orleans from flooding | The Lens

There's a whole lot of shifting going on in the Gulf coast delta area, which makes for engineering and construction of levees difficult. New levees have to be consistently monitored for sinking in order for them to do what they are designed to do. It appears to be an expensive and never-ending process. Click title for link.
What’s more worrisome?
A. The Army Corps of Engineers is repairing a newly-built levee that has subsided as much as six inches — the second such repair in a year and just as the state is about to take ownership of the $14.5-billion system.
B. No one with the regional Flood Protection Authority was surprised. In fact, they’ve been expecting this news.
Welcome to life on a starving, sinking delta – in the middle of Hurricane Alley.