Orleans Levee Board

From 1890 through 2006, the Orleans Levee Board was the body in charge of supervising the levee and floodwall system in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, which is intended to protect the city of New Orleans from flooding. The role included requirements definition prior to construction, operation, and ongoing maintenance. Over the years the Board also took on various activities relating to land use on and around the levees. In the wake of the catastrophic engineering failures sustained by New Orleans' levee and floodwall system in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, two new regional flood protection authorities were created to supersede multiple parochial levee boards, including Orleans Parish's Levee Board. Most of the Orleans Levee District now falls under the jurisdiction of the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East, charged with the oversight of all flood protection infrastructure for Greater New Orleans on the East Bank of the Mississippi River. The Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-West possesses the same metro-wide jurisdiction for the West Bank of the Mississippi, and includes that portion of the Orleans Levee District on the West Bank (i.e., Algiers).

Until the end of 2006, the Orleans Levee Board was a major governmental entity that functioned independently of municipal government in and around Orleans Parish, Louisiana. (Orleans Parish is coextensive with the city of New Orleans; their boundaries are one and the same). The purpose of the agency governed by the Orleans Levee Board, the Orleans Levee District, was to protect New Orleans from flooding, and to protect and operate the equipment placed and assigned for that purpose. Starting in the 1920s the Board undertook a massive flood protection initiative involving the construction of a stepped seawall several hundred feet north of a portion of the existing south shore of Lake Pontchartrain. The intervening area was filled to several feet above sea level and was to serve as a "super levee" protecting the city from Lake Pontchartrain storm surge. This "lakefill" land reclamation project ultimately was developed to include Lakeshore Drive, the residential subdivisions of Lakeshore, Lake Vista, Lake Terrace and Lake Oaks, the principal campus of the University of New Orleans ("UNO"), the UNO Research & Technology Park, the New Orleans Lakefront Airport, hundreds of acres of public parks, and a number of commercial areas. This project resulted in the Orleans Levee Board's deep engagement in land development, long-term leases, greenspace maintenance, marina operation and, once Louisiana legalized gaming in 1992, casino gambling.^[1] Such activities led critics of the Board to accuse its members of being more concerned with lucrative subsidiary activities than with what was their Board's primary assigned task (flood protection).

History

The Orleans Levee District was created by the Louisiana legislature in 1890 for the purpose of protecting the city of New Orleans from floods. At the time, communities along the Mississippi River were largely in charge of creating their own levees to protect themselves, as no unified levee system existed. Most neighboring parishes had (and some still have) similar parochial levee boards.

In 1924, the state legislature authorized the levee district's Board of Commissioners ("the Levee Board") to acquire 33,000 acres (130 km²) of land on the east bank of the Mississippi River about 50 miles (80 km) south of New Orleans in order to build the Bohemia Spillway between the River and the Gulf of Mexico. (1924 La. Acts 99). Approximately half of this land was public property transferred from the state; the other half was either expropriated or purchased under threat of expropriation from private owners according to a legal finding. (1928 La. Acts 246; 1942 La. Acts 311).^[2]

In the aftermath of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the United States Congress gave the United States Army Corps of Engineers supervision and control of design and construction of flood control throughout the Mississippi Valley. Local levee boards remained, however, in charge of day-to-day inspection and maintenance of the levee systems in their areas.

In the 1934 New Orleans Lakefront Airport opened on land dredged from Lake Pontchartrain by the Levee Board, part of a larger "lakefill" land reclamation project initiated to construct a super levee to protect the northern perimeter of New Orleans. The airport was originally named "Shushan Airport" after Orleans Levee Board president Abraham Lazar Shushan; it was renamed "New Orleans Airport" after Shushan's indictment for corrupution in the Louisiana Scandals of the late 1930s.

In the wake of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Congress directed the United States Army Corps of Engineers to design and construct a network of levees and floodwalls for Greater New Orleans sufficient to withstand a direct hit by a moderately strong hurricane, approximating Category 3 on the modern Saffir-Simpson scale.

A 2002 lawsuit detailed the Orleans Levee Board's then-considerable independent financial means.

From the Levee Board's Legal Statement at trial:^[3]

"With regard to the more general question of the levee district's budget, the Orleans Levee District receives very little funding from the state. The levee district generates its own revenues from the Lakefront Airport, a casino, leases of property, fees from boatslips and marinas, and taxes. The district also receives income from various investment accounts currently worth $57 million. The levee board does not dispute these facts. At oral argument, counsel for the levee board pointed out that the district receives some state funds, even though they are usually in the form of capital outlays dedicated to specific projects. Because the state funds are already earmarked for other purposes, the state monies cannot be used to pay a judgment against the levee district. See Hudson, 174 F.3d at 688-89."

The Levee Board and Hurricane Katrina

Debris set on curb from flood damaged Uptown home includes trashed "Katrina refrigerator" with graffiti proclaiming "Levee Board Victim".

On Tuesday, August 30, 2005 the Orleans Levee Board was at the center of the greatest crisis ever to face the city of New Orleans when in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina multiple levee and floodwall breaches in the Industrial Canal, 17th Street Canal, and London Avenue Canal resulted in the flooding of some 80% of the city. The resulting flood is believed to have caused over 1,000 deaths, destroyed or severely damaged homes, businesses, and property in the majority of the city, and contributed to the emergence of lawlessness, looting and murder within the city of New Orleans in the days afterward.

Investigations after the disaster revealed the design of the levee and floodwall system, contracted and overseen by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, to have been profoundly inadequate, and that the annual inspections of completed projects by the Orleans Levee Board were perfunctory at best. Legal investigations of possible criminal negligence are ongoing.

Governmental Reform

In the aftermath of the 2005 flooding, there were calls for the elimination of the Orleans Levee Board and other local and regional boards. During a special session of the Louisiana Legislature, a bill was passed into law by Sen. Walter Boasso (D-Arabi), which consolidated the levee boards of various parishes within Greater New Orleans. The law created two new regional levee boards, Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East and Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-West, separated by the Mississippi River.

The Orleans Levee Board ceased to exist on January 1, 2007. The new regional flood protection authorities assumed control of the Board's flood protection infrastructure. Lakefront Airport, the marinas (except for the city-owned Municipal Yacht Harbor), Lakeshore Drive and the lakefront park system (except for West End Park, administered by New Orleans' Parks and Parkways Department) are now operated and maintained by the Louisiana State Division of Administration Non-Flood Protection Asset Management Authority.

References

1. ^ "?". http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/2003/jul/17/515352742.html. 
2. ^ "?". http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=5th&navby=case&no=0130728cv0. 
3. ^ "?". http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=5th&navby=case&no=0130728cv0. 

External links

• OrleansLevee.com
• Times-Picayune article summarizing post-Katrina investigations of levee engineering