Mike Tidwell has this OpEd in today's LA Times. I suppose wetlands means WalMart parking lots to Bu$hCo, therefore, we cannot hurt the economy & restore the wetlands needed to protect, not only NOLA, but all of the Gulf Coast. I know it's been said, many times, many ways, but how can one man be so effing stupid?
"AS WE NEAR the 100-day mark since Hurricane Katrina hit, it's time we ended our national state of denial and abandon New Orleans for good.
We should call it quits not because New Orleans can't be made relatively safe from hurricanes. It can be. And not because to do so is more trouble than it's worth. It's not. Instead, the hammers and brooms and chain saws should all be put away and the city permanently boarded up because the Bush administration has already given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death.
Although he has encouraged city residents to return home and declared 'we will do whatever it takes' to save the city, President Bush last month refused the one thing New Orleans simply cannot live without: a restored network of barrier islands and coastal wetlands.
Katrina destroyed the Big Easy — and future Katrinas will do the same — because 1 million acres of coastal islands and marshland vanished in Louisiana in the last century because of human interference. These land forms served as natural 'speed bumps,' reducing the lethal surge tide of past hurricanes and making New Orleans habitable in the first place. A $14-billion plan to fix this problem — widely viewed as technically sound and supported by environmentalists, oil companies and fishermen alike — has been on the table for years and was pushed forward with greater urgency after Katrina hit. But the Bush administration has turned its back on this plan."
Emphasis mine.
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