Environmental groups are wary of corps report

Several environmental groups on Tuesday charged that the Army Corps of Engineers interim report on efforts to protect New Orleans and south Louisiana from Category 5 hurricanes could result in an environment-damaging, nearly continuous hurricane levee across the state's coast.

Tim Searchinger, an attorney and water resources expert with Environmental Defense, said there's little chance of congressional approval of a "great wall of Louisiana" because its cost would be prohibitive.

But he said that by focusing on the wall, which could be 60 feet high in some places, the corps is wasting money and time that would be better spent on development and construction of more focused protection of the state's coastal population centers and on wetland and barrier island restoration projects that would also protect coastal areas from hurricane storm surges.

from the Times Picayune