Rob Young mentioned to Andersen Cooper last night he would not question the motivations of the crooks in Louisiana that shook down BP to steer the resulting no bid contracts to their political cronies to build them useless sand berms. The scientists are wise not to do that and besides that’s what we’re for here at Slabbed. This one goes out to Nunny and Boy Bobby with a big Hat Tip to Editilla.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF4-r2MpRMs]
I did not realize this was a repeat. I posted the other Jimmy Hendrix vid from my blackberry. Great song though so we’ll leave it up albeit twice.
sop
The sand berms were an obvious fraud from the get-g0; that the MSM let Boob Bob get so much mileage of out them only illuminates their gullibility. Anyone who has worked on a complex deliverable can tell you two things: (1) if the powers-that-be say it will take six months, count on at least twelve; (2) if it’s never been tried before, all bets are off. Whatever you wind up with (if anything) will not live up to the hype, and may well be futile and counterproductive. That Louisianans love the governor who touts this snake oil and has only his best interests in mind astounds me.
Yep and yet the GOP faithful rallied around Jindal and Nungesser despite all the smoke, mirrors and corruption potential. Even worse is the impact on litigation down the road because it will not be clear what is killing the marshes, blocking the tidal flows with sand or the oil. BP isn’t stupid which also may explain why they went along with this scheme because the confusion may well be worth more than the $300MM they allowed Jindal to steer to his political cronies.
Once again supposedly otherwise intelligent people were snookered; mostly the same crowd of wingnuts that cast aspersions on those who reported on Martin Feldman’s blatent conflict of interest in Hornbeck.
Speaking of Bobby boy the Louisiana coastal science community knows full well what happened to Ivor Van heerden which also explains why so few coastal scientists in Louisiana are speaking out. Since BP only allows the scientists they hire to comment on a pre approved basis the safe play is to go to work for them as glorified spinmeisters. Ben Raines at the Mobile Press Register did a story today on this exact topic.
Bobby Jindal, like Boss Hogg Haley Barbour and Billy Nungesser are using the spill to further their own personal agendas at the expense of the residents impacted by the spill.
sop
The COE has for years been allowed to only use sand to refurbish the Barrier Islands and have been stopped from using any frontal protection to hold the sand in place and is washed away within one or two strom cycles at most. However, the COE has a mat production plant at St Francisville that mats could be loaded on barges and placed on the leeward side of the dune to act as a reinforced wave barrier and hold all that sand in place until such time as the best top soil in this nation can be pumped over the sand from the Mississippi River to a sustanible height of between +10 to +15-ft and since it is a freshwater material, grasses, trees and other vegatation would grow rapidly to hoild these new barriers in place and provide habitat for wildlife & sea creatures.
These are the same mats they annually place in the Mississippi River to prevent erosion of the bank which would in turn make the levees become a place of possible failure. The mats are articualed concrete laced together on steel cable and mold themselves fairly well to whatthey are laid over. There are also other methods of armorment, graded stone from small to very large in layers or Gabion Baskets filled with stone. However, sand alone is no match for the normal forses of wave action as all sandy coast erode.
Anyone ever wonder why the COE maintained the MRGO Channel to the authorized depth, even though the required lock was never constructed? It sure wasn’t engineering, it was spending what was budgeted even though it was just monies down the funnel!!! There is hardly any reasoning used to spend monies needlessly, so for 40+ years the COE wasted our tax dollars and no one cried foul! Until the required lock was/is completed there was/is never any reason to have the approach channel any larger or deeper than the existing lock diamensions. The only need of a wide channel was for two way traffic which over this same period of time apparently took place only a few times.