US urged to abandon ageing flood defences in favour of Dutch system

The US must adopt an integrated model of water management like the Netherlands, says New Orleans senator Mary Landrieu
Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 5 Jun 09;

America, now entering its hurricane season, was today urged to abandon the outmoded "patch and pray" system of levees – whose failure magnified the devastation of Hurricane Katrina – and borrow from the Dutch model of dykes and water management.

Mary Landrieu, a senator from New Orleans who was brought to tears during a helicopter tour of the destruction of 2005, said America needed to rethink its entire approach to low-lying coastal areas and adopt an integrated model of water management like that of the Netherlands.

The US has budgeted $14bn since Katrina to shore up the flood defences of Louisiana and other low-lying areas. "I believe I have found a great model that will work for protecting the people of Louisiana and the people of the Gulf coast," she told reporters.

Louisiana's ageing flood controls rely on a series of levees along the Mississippi river built over the past 80 years by the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the Netherlands, water management is incorporated into urban planning, taking into account parks and other open public spaces that could function as safety reservoirs in case of floods, and also barrier islands and wetlands.

"They have engineers and architects that build a flood control system that is integrated into the landscape," Landrieu said. "We have a one-size-fits-all military model that is out of date – building levees – when we should be managing water."

The Dutch also build to a far higher standard of preparedness than in the US, with structures designed to hold up in even the most extreme storms and flooding conditions. "The system we have now in South Louisiana and in some measures in much of the country is unsustainable," Landrieu said. "It is literally a patch-and-pray system and it doesn't even try to patch us to the same level that is customary in other parts of the world.

Landrieu was speaking on her second visit to the Netherlands to study water management since Katrina, and said she planned to ask Congress to approve funds to improve water management along the Gulf Coast.

This week marks the start of the hurricane season in the Americas. The US government's forecasting agency, Noaa, said there was a 70% chance of having nine to 14 named storms this season. As many as three of those storms could develop into major hurricanes, ranked category three or higher.

Katrina was only a category three storm when it made landfall in August 2005, but it was America's deadliest hurricane. The flood control system was breached at more than 50 places in New Orleans, leaving 80% of the city underwater for weeks. More than 1,800 people were killed; others were stranded for days without food or drinking water in sweltering temperatures, producing searing images of a human catastrophe and government failure.

Since Katrina, the senator has fought back hard against the idea – expressed repeatedly since 2005 – that New Orleans and the other low-lying regions of her home state are unsustainable, and that the population should ultimately be moved to higher ground.

Instead, she argued today that a redesign of the infrastructure for water management be extended from Louisiana to other low-lying coastal areas at risk of hurricanes, such as parts of Florida and Georgia.

Dutch officials contacted Landrieu soon after Katrina, saying there were strong geographic parallels between Louisiana and Netherlands. Both are low-lying coastal areas. Both host major ports, and both have experienced devastating floods; the Netherlands lost 2,000 people in 1953.

More than a quarter of the Netherlands is below sea level; Louisiana is 16% water, with the land sliced up by lakes, bayous, canals and the Mississippi river.

The Netherlands, though smaller, has a far more extensive network of flood protections. Louisiana has about 2,200 miles of flood walls and control structures, while the Netherlands has about 1,860 miles of outer-sea dykes and 6,200 miles of river dykes and canal walls.

Flood control systems in the Netherlands are built to withstand storms of a severity seen once in 10,000 years; in the US the levees are built to stand up to storms of a severity anticipated once in a century.

Landrieu was accompanied by the chairman of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, who comes from the lower ninth ward of New Orleans, the worst affected area by the storm.

Landrieu declined to give an estimate of the costs involved of changing America's approach to water management. "It's going to be in the billions but we are spending billions now," she said. "My effort here is to spend it better and get a safe result."