Comments on: Saving America’s Wetlands: Will we ever learn our lesson?

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:51:26 +0000

Wetlands are scientifically proven to lessen the blow of hurricanes by taking the blow themselves and slowing the hurricanes down. New Orleans almost made it out of Katrina safely. In fact, everybody thought New Orleans was safe…

This was COULD HAVE BEEN prevented in a natural way.

Grrr…sorry.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:49:31 +0000

Sorry, I was masquerading as Rachel again.

By: garver

garver — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:21:23 +0000

What Rachel said. Wetlands provide a buffer, tend to dissipate storm surges, and provide a natural drainage system. Filling in and building on wetlands raises the level of nearby inland bodies of water as well as basically providing a smooth path for things like storm surges.

In theory, once these effect have been studied, market forces should help take care of matters, since it’s a bad investment to build up these areas. From what I’ve read, things like Federal flood insurance provide an incentive to take these kinds of risks. Also since individual buildings or small projects have little effect, the evironmental costs are a negative externality that markets don’t account for adequately. At least so I’ve read.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 12:03:04 +0000

Jon S.,

Wetlands are scientifically proven to prevent to lessen the blow of hurricanes by taking the blow themselves and slowing the hurricanes down. New Orleans almost made it out of Katrina safe. In fact, everybody thought New Orleans was safe at first. Had the first levee not broken, we would probably not had the other levee breeches.

Jon A.,

Agreed. However, most of the time, conservatives don’t want to look at the environmental issues.

This was prevented in a natural way. Had the Wetlands been getting the freshwater and silt or at least been replanted, it would have taken the brunt of the hurricane. It would have slowed down considerably before it hit N.O.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 07:16:45 +0000

btw, this was not posted by me.. it was Rick forgetting to logout again.

By: jon

jon — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 04:38:53 +0000

I heard tonight that there were actually plans in the ’70s to build new levee gates in N.O. after Camille, but environmental activists prevented it from happening. Had the levees been updated as proposed , N.O. might not be as submerged as it is. Not to knock responsible environmental work; just pointing out that sometimes there’s stupidity on both sides.

By: Jon S.

Jon S. — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 03:52:13 +0000

Am I missing something? How would protecting the wetlands have prevented Hurricane Katrina? Or even the damage it caused? New Orleans has been there long before wetlands protection efforts were taken up as causes worthy to fight for.

That said, as a resident on the coast, I definitely see the benefit of having wetlands preserved. Commercialization can do a lot of damage… more damage than many conservatives seem to realize. Just because a lot of environmentalists are loonies doesn’t mean we shoudn’t take care of what God’s given us dominion over. I just don’t see what wetland preservation has to do with the hurricane.