Green Daily

The Army Corps of Engineers has frustrated me for a while. Why do we trust them to do a good job on major jobs that affect a lot of lives, when they're not really overseen by anybody and they have a huge personal financial interest in perpetuating giant engineering projects which may or may not be what's needed for the environment? And why do we keep calling Hurricane Katrina a "natural disaster," when it seems clear that the Corps' bad planning led to the breaks in the levees that ruined so many homes and killed so many people? Is it because we're just too afraid to challenge an organization which combines the two authoritative words "Army" and "engineer" in its name?

Well, the good times may be over for the Corps. The organization may now be held liable for damages to Katrina sufferers' homes, after a judge ruled that the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a Corps-constructed shipping channel, contributed to the destruction in New Orleans in 2005. New Orleanians had been trying to get the channel shut down, because of the danger to the city during a storm surge, but the Corps refused, and instead built levees along the side - on soil that shifted, rendering some levees useless. It will be interesting to how the lawsuits go - how many people will choose to sue? How public will the suits be? And will the Corps maintain its mysterious aura of omnipotence after this is all over with?

Via Envirowonk