The lawsuit stopped a plan in the lake. Do you have a reference where
the lawsuit prevented levee improvements after the 1970s? If so, you
should tell the Corps cause they are still working on the levees. Sounds
like a song.
http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/re...asp?prj=lkpon1

"Tom S." wrote in message
...

"sfb" wrote in message
news:08OUe.5035$8h6.4620@trnddc09...
New Orleans politicians includes the Congressional delegation who are
the Federals. While the President proposes, the Congress writes and
passes the legislation. That the levees weren't upgraded is as much
the fault of the Congressional delegation as anybody as they have the
power to make it happen if they had wanted.

Not quite:

In the 1970s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Lake Pontchartrain and
Vicinity Hurricane Barrier Project planned to build fortifications at
two strategic locations, which would keep massive storms on the Gulf
of Mexico from causing Lake Pontchartrain to flood the city. An
article in the May 28, 2005, New Orleans Times-Picayune stated, “Under
the original plan, floodgate-type structures would have been built at
the Rigolets and Chef Menteur passes to block storm surges from moving
from the Gulf into Lake Pontchartrain.”



“The floodgates would have blocked the flow of water from the Gulf of
Mexico, through Lake Borgne, through the Rigolets [and Chef Mentuer]
into Lake Pontchartrain,” declared Professor Gregory Stone, the James
P. Morgan Distinguished Professor and Director of the Coastal Studies
Institute of Louisiana State University. “This would likely have
reduced storm surge coming from the Gulf and into the Lake
Pontchartrain,” Professor Stone told Michael P. Tremoglie during an
interview on September 6. The professor concluded, “[T]hese floodgates
would have alleviated the flooding of New Orleans caused by Hurricane
Katrina.”

The New Orleans Army Corps of Engineers and Professor Stone were not
the only people cognizant of the consequences that could and did
result because of the environmental activists. While speaking with
Sean Hannity on his radio show on Labor Day, former Louisiana
Congressman and Speaker of the House Bob Livingston also referred to
environmentalists whose litigation prevented hurricane prevention
projects.

In other words, unlike other programs – including the ones leftists
like Sid Blumenthal excoriated the president for not funding – these
constructions might have prevented the loss of life experienced in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.


Why was this project aborted? As the Times-Picayune wrote, “Those
plans were abandoned after environmental advocates successfully sued
to stop the projects as too damaging to the wetlands and the lake's
eco-system.” (Emphasis added.) Specifically, in 1977, a state
environmentalist group known as Save Our Wetlands (SOWL) sued to have
it stopped. SOWL stated the proposed Rigolets and Chef Menteur
floodgates of the Lake Pontchartrain Hurricane Prevention Project
would have a negative effect on the area surrounding Lake
Pontchartrain. Further, SOWL’s recollection of this case demonstrates
they considered this move the first step in a perfidious design to
drain Lake Pontchartrain entirely and open the area to dreaded
capitalist investment.


On December 30, 1977, U.S. District Judge Charles Schwartz Jr. issued
an injunction against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lake
Pontchartrain hurricane protection project, demanding the engineers
draw up a second environmental impact statement, three years after the
corps submitted the first one. In one of the most ironic
pronouncements of all time, Judge Schwartz wrote, “it is the opinion
of the Court that plaintiffs herein have demonstrated that they, and
in fact all persons in this area, will be irreparably harmed if the
barrier project based upon the August, 1974 FEIS [federal
environmental impact statement] is allowed to continue.”

read the rest at:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles...e.asp?ID=19418