What do you think, the engineers at the ORCS are tearing their hair out
at Bush's promise to 'rebuild New Orleans'. This was their golden
chance to have a permanent solution to the problem of holding back the
Mississippi to spare the city and infrastructure of the lower delta.
They should rebuild the city and refineries at the mouth of the
Atchafalaya, knock out the Old River Control Structure, and bye-bye
worries. The new city can be designed around a modern levee system, the
elevation is higher, the infrastructure can be modified, the old
historic building in Old New Orleans (which need to be refurbished
beyond description anyway) can be transported to the new site, and the
whole multi-level problem of Mississippi floods and hurricane danger
can be solved in one swell foop. And the entire groundwork and
infrastructure of a major city can be laid without anyone living on
site, a design opportunity never before seen, but one constantly
proposed for future scenarios like space colonies and future cities.

Rebuilding NO in situ is throwing good money after bad, and wasting a
golden opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. Its bad enough
that Bush ruins our present economy with his contrived war and
ridiculous tax cut for the rich, now he is spending $50Bn+ on something
that probably won't last another 100 years, (as soon as the inevitable
failure of the ORCs happens) and might very well get washed out before
we've even finished paying for it. Lets hope there are some brave
politicians, scientists and urban planners (who haven't already been
compromised) who dare to fight the rebuilding of the city on the same
doomed and poisoned site, and convince the powers that this is a golden
opportunity (which unfortunately, might very well come again.)

--riverman