Gating the 17th Street Canal

The first thing that pops into my mind when I read that the Jefferson Parish Council has voted $400K for a consulting study is who is connected to whom that they got that much cash. Given that it's a study to second-guess the US Army Corp of Engineers, however, I'm not as cynical:

Councilwoman Jennifer Sneed says the corps has promised only limited pumping capacity from Hoey's Basin, much of it in her district, while the canal remains closed. While Pump Station No. 6 on the canal can move more than 10,000 cubic feet of water per second, Sneed says the temporary pumps proposed by the corps can handle only one-tenth of that.

"When the corps said it was going to gate off the 17th Street Canal to protect residents from a potential storm surge, it immediately begged the question: What about rainfall?" Sneed said. "How would those neighborhoods be drained of rainwater during a hurricane if the canal is closed?

"I understand we have vulnerability with the weakness of the canal, and we must be protected from the storm surge. But most tropical storms and hurricanes are rain events. We cannot have an either/or scenario here," she said. "The residents of this area deserve both hurricane protection and drainage for rainwater."

In our on-going effort to help the poor struggling Times-Picayune, here's the diagram for this story they didn't put on the website:

That's one of the things that scares me most about the Corps: they tend not to follow the fall of the dominos to the end when they implement a plan.

So, I don't have a problem with the study, but the political connections make me wonder if $400K is excessive:

The company was founded by the parish's former drainage director, Ken Brown, and is well-connected in Jefferson political circles. It donated $8,500 during the 2003 election cycle to council members and Parish President Aaron Broussard, and Brown personally donated $2,500 each to Sneed and Councilman Byron Lee, and $1,000 to Councilman Elton Lagasse.

People who have lined Aaron Broussard's pockets don't inspire a lot of confidence, even when compared to the Corps.

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