The Podium of Solutions for the City of New Orleans

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Mark Fischetti, a contributing editor to Scientific American magazine, first wrote about Coast 2050 in 2001. On the op-ed page of The New York Times after Katrina struck, he wrote about how sick it made him feel to know about a plan that ''might have helped save the city, but had gone unrealized."

Completing every recommended project for Coast 2050 would have cost an estimated $14 billion, so Louisiana turned to Congress for help. But the plan was never financed: ''Congress had other priorities, Lousiana politicians had other priorities, and the magic moment of consensus was lost," Fischetti wrote.

Washington did send federal money to Louisiana, but it was not used wisely. Over the last five years of the Bush administration, Louisiana received $1.9 billion for Army Corps of Engineers civil works projects, according to The Washington Post. Some federal money was spent trying to keep the city dry. However, hundreds of millions were diverted to unrelated water projects, and some money was simply wasted, the Post reported.

Meanwhile, a complex, expensive, but feasible engineering solution existed, but it was never implemented. As the human and property toll rises in New Orleans, it makes a citizen wonder why government is so terribly reactive. It also makes a citizen wonder what makes the difference: Why can Boston get $15 billion to rebuild a highway? Why can Florida get Congress to fund a $7 billion engineering program to refresh the Everglades, while Louisiana can't get backing for a plan to save thousands of lives and millions of dollars in property?
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