Blog Manager Allie Stevens is working on the link issue. In the meantime here are the urls that are highlighted in the post:
retro cars: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/08/02/aut...
twin span bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-10_Twin_Span_Bridg...
Ozymandias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias
Highway 1 project:
http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl070709cblee...

As of 11:50 CDT on Aug. 13 the &%*#@ links in this post are inactive. I'm working on the problem. Please check in later and hopefully you'll be able to pull up the reference stuff..

I'll try to correct the map on the second part of this piece.

Scott-
Thanks and you're no doubt correct about the map. I wanted a scale broad enough to encompass the various highway segments mentioned and my geographical knowledge wasn't quite up to the task!

I'm sure there are pictures of the construction techniques in various engineering handbooks. I'll see what I can find.
Len

Editor's note: With the permission of the author I'm posting this comment emailed to me by Jim Rives, now retiring from many years as either administrator or holder of one of the top posts in the Coastal Management Division of the Department of Natural Resources. Unfortunately, Jim's retirement represents a serious loss to Louisiana of institutional technical and political knowledge and experience.

Len:

Your transportation story struck a personal note for me. My grandfather, Dr. James D. Rives, drove the car up River Road to take that doctor to attend to Long on (as it turned out) his deathbed. My grandfather got in a wreck on the way. He was following another car's taillights in the fog and ran off the road. Fortunately, the only damage was a flat tire. He fixed it, and they continued on their way. I will tell you the whole story some day for a price: one Dos Equis amber, as long as I can buy you what you want to drink.

My grandfather was a resident at the time. He became one of the most influential physicians in Louisiana and taught at LSU Medical School. One of his teachings - if you are a surgeon, do not risk your hands by doing things which could injure them - like changing a tire!

Jim Rives

Thanks, Erich. Tom Sands deserves most of the credit.

Editor's note: The following thoughts are responses to my above comments re the seven concerns listed in the governor's office press release. They were emailed to me by someone who works for the state and would prefer to remain anonymous.

1. This is a problem of our own making. We let the COE get into this position. It started with the CWPPRA legislation where somehow the COE got named as the "lead" agency. It has been all downhill from there, especially since we put the fox in charge of the henhouse when we hired a COE employee to guide the coastal restoration amd management programs. We deserve what we get. We hitched our wagon to the COE star. We laid down with the dog and now wonder how we got fleas. How else can I say it. We needed and still need to get our own damn money from Congress. There is NO constitutional provision that I know of that precludes us from getting funding from some other source. Remember that the first Coastal Impact Assistance Program (CIAP) funding came through NOAA. The second through MMS
and neither of these had the plan development bagage that money through WRDA carries. Lastly remember this and never forget it - IF YOU GIVE MONEY TO THE COE THROUGH WRDA IT IS THE COE'S MONEY NOT OURS. They will spend it their way. Bureaucracy, in and of itself is NOT the problem all of these folks seem to think it is.

2. You are absolutely correct. The EPA folks that I have been involved with in the progress of coastal restoration and management have been outstanding individuals, for the most part, working diligently to provide meaningful, timely input into a process gone totally crazed. The COE asked for and received expedited plan development and review processes through Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). What some of your readers may not be aware of and I wish I had the time to find the answer to is the level of effort that the COE has been able to muster in order to move the Independent Environmental Review (IER) process for planning and "environmentally clearing" all of the hurricane risk reduction projects forward compared to the level of effort all of the other federal, state, and local agencies have been able to muster to work on these issues. I know of no increases in human resources to "throw into the fray" from the other participants. I may be wrong but........

3. I have yet to be able to fully wrap my mind around this issue and the response to it from our populace. That we are so conceited that we think we have the right to live anywhere we please is astounding to me. Especially that we believe someone should make any place we choose safe and habitable with everyone else's money. If anyone thinks that they can or should be able to do this they are obviously not living in the real world. Just look around - the landscape is literally littered with places we "used" to live but do not now. We refer to them as archaeological sites! I realize that the reasons are many but I can assure you that in many cases the environment or more specifically the changes in the environment around these sites caused the move. We need to be upfront with everyone about this - the levees ARE NOT going to be all out protection. They WILL NOT last forever and given our past performance and predilictions we are very liable not to properly build OR maintain them.

4. Again I agree with you though I wish I did not have to. The preponderance of the evidence is with you. I think that if this state were not soo ate up with short sighted, greedy individuals we could unilateraly do a lot of things. We could get our own money submit permit applications to the COE for the projects we want and dare them to not issue the permit.

5. I agree with you on this. Remember however that the Mississippi River is not the only federally maintained navigation channel in the coastal zone - there are nine others. This has been a terribly underutilized strategy, again because we have traditionally lacked the political will, for whatever reason (read that to mean the big money was against it) to push this issue at every turn. I also lay this squarely at the feet of the state.

6. I agree that I think the true ecosystem costs have been highly underestimated. I also doubt that we will ever see the mitigation implemented. Remember the COE committed to a great deal of "mitigation" in
the Atchafalaya Basin that low these last thirty years has yet to be done. Another serious problem I see is the concept that we will use all of the restoration we do as mitigation fore the impacts from the protection
projects. This is disingenuous on several levels and IT IS NOT right.

7. You are right on again. I do not think we have the will to do what we need to do - after all JOBS is quickly becoming the mantra and the reason to do anything we can, short-sighted thought it may be to try and fix other social issues that are far more complicated at the expense of our house. That is the way it always has been not just here.

Kyle-
I appreciate your comments and I'm glad to hear that the concerns and recommendations listed in the press release are only suggestions to begin serious discussions.

BTW, the website you included has no content at this time.
Len

I think so, Gene. It's been 9 months and the readership is still expanding.

HeidiHoe-
I'm glad you put quotes around 'proved.' Statistics provides powerful tools to show significant relationships and support or disprove hypotheses but never 'prove' them.