Dams More Important than Levees?

Apparently, before Hurricane Katrina, the federal government believed that dams were just that, more important than levees. Bob Marshall of the Times-Picayune exposed shocking differences in the level of standards for dams as opposed to levees. The National Dam Safety Act requires that dams be built to higher standards than levees and subjected to much more rigorous peer reviews and safety checks. "There is a National Dam Safety Act that sets out specific requirements to make sure dams won't have these problems, that they are safe for the people who live around them. There is no similar legislation for levees," said Larry Roth, deputy executive director of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Had the levees been held to the same standards by the Corps of Engineers as dams are, the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans would most likely have been significantly reduced, if not prevented altogether. This is one more piece of evidence that illustrates the mistakes made by the Army Corps of Engineers and, therefore, which solidifies the federal government's responsibility to fix this problem.

"We're hoping one of the good things that comes out of Katrina is that the country finally recognizes the fact that levees protect as much human life and property as dams," Roth concluded. I most certainly agree. The more one investigates the events leading to the failures during Hurricane Katrina, the more one realizes that there problems that were foreseen and should have been dealt with. As I have said before and will keep saying, Katrina was as much a man-made disaster as it was a natural one.