Tag: The Shaw Group
Jeremy Alford has a little something for everyone with Jindy's Cash Cows…
Folks, rarely has a writer managed to weave so many angles of interest to the Slabbed Nation into one article as nicely as free-lance writer Jeremy Alford does for Gambit in his article Cash Cows. (H/T Editilla) There is only one place I know of that has woven players like Worley Catastrophe, Bermdoggle, Allan “Show me the Money” Kanner plus TheRiot and Magnum JD into a narrative and that of course is right here. Jeremy gets an A+.
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As the berms turn part three: Jindal's "Dutch Treat" not working out. Dutch dredging company Van Oord says Jindal is all wet.
Folks, at the true extent of Bobby Jindal’s sand berm boondoggle comes to light Team Jindy is circling the wagons as hard questions are being asked. My last post on this topic was linked over at TigerDroppings.com and it stimulated an interesting discussion. This much is clear after reading some of the commentary. If Bobby Jindal passes gas and says it smells like lavender there is a segment of the populace that will buy in no questions asked. There is not much any of the rest of us a do for that group except show some patience and understanding. Meantime lets add some color about how the sand berm scheme came about and what some of the participants are saying now.
First off let’s begin with Dutch company Van Oord, a huge dredging company that had an angle on making some money off the oil spill in building some massive berms to “shorten the coastline”. I’ve embedded their May 4, 2010 power point presentation to Scribd:
[scribd id=35125073 key=key-ip7frn6drt4rw2nqr1g mode=slideshow]
Next up is Kyle Graham, a Jindal political hack who did a Powerpoint presentation pushing the sand berms on June 16th where he credited Van Oord on page 16: Continue reading “As the berms turn part three: Jindal's "Dutch Treat" not working out. Dutch dredging company Van Oord says Jindal is all wet.”
As the sand berms turn: Slabbed goes on assignment. Drake adds outstanding analysis.
Slabbed contributor Russell and I traveled to the campus of Western Carolina University last Friday and met with Rob Young, Professor of Geosciences and of the Director of the University’s, Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines. Our readers should well know Rob by now as his name has been mentioned here frequently of late last time being Thursday night passed just before he appeared in an interview with Anderson Cooper.
We had a wide ranging discussion that included barrier islands, coastal insurance issues, state wind pool solvency and of course Bobby Jindal and Billy Nungesser’s sand berm boondoggle. Rob requested that I keep certain portions of our discussions off the record and I’m happy to honor those requests. The reason is not that he is hiding something far from it in fact. Rather, it was because he complained, rightfully so in my opinion, about the relatively recent trend of the politicization of science and he did not want any of his remarks misconstrued. I am convinced Rob is in this for the science and only for the science. This is what separates him from certain politicians whose initials are B.J. who likes to use science only when it furthers his political ambitions.
With that said there are three points that need to be made. The first is I have a boatload of links saved where politicians like Nunny, Jindy, Chris Roberts and others whined to anyone who would give them an open mike (ie Anderson Cooper) about the feds not letting them dump rocks around their sand berms but I have none of those links handy as I write this post. It is just as well because these blowhards weren’t saying anything of substance anyhow though I’m certain it made for good TV footage and news copy, especially when Cooper’s airhead replacement went stalking the Corps of Engineers on July 5th inquiring why they were not working with the now suddenly wanting to be cooperative Nunny and Chrissy as their permit to dump rocks was rejected. For the record the powers that be at the COE were evidently doing the same thing Anderson Cooper was that day in enjoying the federal holiday but I digress.
Second, regarding the rock addition to the sand berm scheme, if the new goal is to rebuild the barrier islands as Chrissy suggested, Rob pointed out to us that the endangered sea turtles which use the islands and beaches to breed can’t very well lay eggs in concrete and rocks. It is those pesky little details the politicians never seem to grasp that comprise the reasons the coastal scientific community are united in their opposition to the berms or more simply put, it is the science stupid. Continue reading “As the sand berms turn: Slabbed goes on assignment. Drake adds outstanding analysis.”
Making the case against the Jindal/Nungesser sand berm scheme: Rob Young appears in the New York Times. Slabbed highlights Billy Nungesser's double dealing with BP.
Editilla was very kind to stop in with us a few days back sharing a link to the Louisiana Coast Post which has been all over the folly of the sand berms. Let’s begin there:
Most residents of south Louisiana and the main stream media have swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the fish story from Governor Jindal and his staff that we can dredge our way out of the B.Pocalypse by constructing sand barriers around our sinking deltaic coast. The sand berm sales job has clearly been an outstanding success.
But wait, a new Robert Young has now emerged as a media figure, not an actor playing a salesman but a coastal scientist playing the critical role of a policy advocate. This modern Robert Young, a coastal geology professor at Western Carolina University, has weighed in on Governor Jindal’s sand berm solution for saving our coast.
Professor Young wrote an Op/Ed Column in The New York Times on June 11 about this controversial and curious concept, the idea of preventing BP spoilage of the Mississippi River delta, not with shrink wrap but with sand berms. His column lists the very same concerns about going through with this project that have been expressed in LaCoastPost here; here; here; here; and here.
Rob well makes the case in the NYT. Here is a snippet:
The state understandably wants to move quickly and on a large scale, and no one wants to stop a project like this simply because it is spending too much of BP’s money. The problem, however, is that the berms won’t work as promised, and their construction will monopolize resources that could be used more effectively elsewhere. Continue reading “Making the case against the Jindal/Nungesser sand berm scheme: Rob Young appears in the New York Times. Slabbed highlights Billy Nungesser's double dealing with BP.”