re: New Orleans is flooding

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An independent auditor needs to be given full access to the S&WB's books over the last two decades

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"Lost in the flood"........

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how much Federal money was granted to New Orleans post-Katrina that was earmarked specifically for mitigating future flooding issues?

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Post-Katrina funds were for Hurricane protection. NOLA has a mixed drainage system, so some of that went to the new pump stations at the Lakefront. It was FEMA funding that was supposed to restore the system and not "improve" it (although moving the pumps was an "improvement".

There was also a Pre-Katrina federal project "SELA" South East Louisiana drainage improvements. that is now complete.

Not certain of exact dollar amounts but it is safe to say it aint small.

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What if the entire system was taken over by an other entity?

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Interesting, but the City will resist with all it's might. SWB is a cash cow and plumb appointment.

A friend's mother was once appointed to the SWB. Her qualifications? A degree in Dental Hygiene......

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Interesting, but the City will resist with all it's might. SWB is a cash cow and plumb appointment.

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Of course, but it's a political subdivision of the state, which means, the state can change it. If you had a governor with the balls to do it, it could be done, and not much the city could do about it.

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I'm assuming the Gov gets a few appointments too

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Not really

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The Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans' eleven member Board of Directors consists of the Mayor, the chair of the Public Works, Sanitation and Environment Committee of the New Orleans City Council or his designee, two representatives of the Board of Liquidation, and seven citizen members, of which five represent council districts and two consumer advocates and one of the appointments shall be a retired civil engineer.

Citizen members are appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the city council from a list of nominees submitted by a Selection Committee comprised of representatives from the following organizations: Dillard University, Loyola University, Tulane University, Xavier University, Delgado Community College, University of New Orleans, Southern University at New Orleans, New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, New Orleans Regional Black Chamber of Commerce, and the Urban League of Greater New Orleans.

Citizen members are required to be registered voters in Orleans Parish, shall have been a domiciliary of Orleans Parish for two years previous to their appointment, shall have experience in either architecture, environmental quality, finance, accounting, business administration, engineering, law, public health, urban planning, facilities management, public administration, science, construction, business management, community or consumer advocacy, or other pertinent disciplines, and their appointment shall reflect the gender and racial diversity of our city. Two citizen members shall be consumer advocates with community advocacy or consumer protection experience or experience in a related field.

The term of office for members appointed to the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans is four years and a member shall serve no more than two consecutive terms of office.

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and if the "poor" land is used, holy cow the racial accusations that will come....The political solutions are much more complicated than the engineering solutions.

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No doubt.

That reminds me of a design workshop I was helping facilitate in Hollygrove. I can't remember if it was the Dutch Dialogues or Urban Water Plan. Whichever one it was, we were working with a lot of Dutch engineers and planners. The Dutch are really good at what they do, but they also can take a few more liberties with design and property in the Netherlands than we can in the US. The Dutch just have a completely different perception of private property than Americans, and we'd tried to explain this to them. It just didn't compute for them.

We're in this design workshop with a few Hollygrove residents and coming up with some designs for the Monticello Canal that allowed for increased storage capacity while making it functional for a neighborhood park. One of the Dutch landscape architects in our group draws a casual line on the paper aerial and it goes over a lady's house who is working in our group. She asks, "You just drew that over my house. What about my house?" I knew where this was going, so I do that look-down-and-away thing when you're in a meeting and know someone is about to get their arse reamed. The Dutchman responds, "Well, it gets torn down..."

He was going to finish the sentence with, "and build you a new house on the edge of this park," but he never got a chance. Now this lady's house was your typical Hollygrove house that's old, leaning to the side, and covered in cat's claw. Didn't matter. It had been in her family for three generations and she wasn't about to let this white man tell her that her house was going to be torn down. I've seen some good arse-chewings in my day, and this one remains top-3 I've ever witnessed. She let him have it. This dutch guy spoke pretty good English, but I'm certain he didn't know half the words she said to him.

But yeah, I don't have an easy answer for the land issue. It's tough. It's going to take someone with incredible charisma to sell it. It's also going to take someone with balls to clean house at all the local agencies responsible for drainage in the area. Wishful thinking, I know.