Editorial: Drowning in poor judgment

Friday, Dec. 22, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

The Army Corps of Engineers is considering plans to build an elaborate network of walls and barriers to defend the U.S. Gulf Coast against future hurricanes, drawing sharp criticism from coastal scientists who say such work will only be costly and make matters worse.

The corps' proposals for long- and short-term hurricane mitigation projects likely won't be finalized until the end of 2007, when they are to be presented to Congress. According to a story Thursday by The New York Times, the short-term plan generally calls for making repairs to the existing Gulf Coast seawalls and shoreline, while the long-term plan that the corps is considering would include a massive network of seawalls, barriers, offshore breakwaters, dune reconstruction on barrier islands and levees or gates to close off inlets during storms.

Scientists who specialize in coastal-area research object to such physical barriers as seawalls and some beach restoration projects because such projects are very expensive and often result in damage to the areas they are supposedly protecting, the Times reports. In fact, some scientists added, the levees, gates and other structures being considered for the long-term repairs could result in damages that are as bad as - or worse than - those resulting from such hurricanes as Katrina, which pummeled the Gulf Coast in 2005.

Using such words as "shocking" and "stunned," scientists told the Times that although the corps' own report acknowledges that Hurricane Katrina leveled 90 percent of the structures within a half-mile of the coastline, the corps' current approach is "designed to let those folks put most of that infrastructure back in place."

Federal officials' inability to learn from their errors is exasperating. After a congressional investigation revealed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had overpaid hurricane victims by millions in 2005, FEMA continued making errant payments this year. And now federal engineers may seek to rebuild the very types of structures that made the Gulf Coast a target for massive hurricane damage. It would seem the Bush administration would grow weary of repeating its mistakes. We certainly are weary of it.