Talk:Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal
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[edit] Man made?
is the mississippi river-gulf outlet man made and what effects did or has cuased when dealing with the impact of the hurrican
- Yes, and take a look at the article and link. Cheers, -- Infrogmation
- Yes, It was authorized by Congress in 1956 and built between 1958 and 1965 at a cost of $92 million. The Corps' Interagency Performance Evaluation Team (IPET) [2] and the American Society of Civil Engineers External Review Panel concluded that the MRGO had very little actual impact on the storm surge from Katrina. Regardless, during the week of December 18, 2006 the US Army Corps of Engineers told Congress [3] that "Based on the current level of analysis, closure of the MRGO channel to both shallow and deep-draft navigation by an armored earthen dam appears to be particularly viable," and "Additional measures to provide oppurtunities for hurricane storm surge protection and ecosystem restoration may complement MRGO channel closure, including wetland shoreline protection, freshwater diversion, and dedicated dredging for coastal habitat creation."Engr civil 15:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Images
Here's a photo from the Paris Road Bridge. Not a very good one (alas I had to shoot blind from a moving car), but possibly of some reference until we have better illustrations. To the left is the Mississippi River and the Crescent City Connection Bridge. Center background are the skyscrapers of the New Orleans Central Business District. MRGO is in the center foreground, heading towards the Industrial Canal. -- Infrogmation 17:34, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] NEW ORLEANS: A CORRUPT CITY, ACCIDENT WAITING TO HAPPEN
"Long before this suburb west of New Orleans was shaken by Hurricane Katrina, it was notorious for its fierce political infighting, for name-calling and mudslinging, for charges and countercharges of cronyism and corruption." In Louisiana, Graft Inquiries Are Increasing
"But the city’s decline over the past three decades has left it impoverished and lacking the resources to build its economy from within. New Orleans can’t take care of itself even when it is not 80% under water; what is it going to do now, as waters continue to cripple it, and thousands of looters systematically destroy what Katrina left unscathed?" Will New Orleans Recover?
"A year ago Total Community Action, an anti-poverty activist group in New Orleans, issued a devastating whitepaper that warned that poverty in the city had reached epidemic proportions. This was not another anti-establishment grouse by a fringe group of activists. The figures on the city’s poverty were appalling. The poverty rate was nearly triple that of the national average. More than 40 percent of public school kids were illiterate, and half would drop out before graduation. Many of them would wind up in Angola state prison, an antique facility that, in a throwback to an Old South plantation, forces inmates to do manual farm labor at peon wages." The Real Reasons New Orleans Is So Poor
"Sure, New Orleans regularly leads the league in all the wrong categories. It's been the fattest city, the most corrupt city, the most murderous city, and so forth." Notes from Under Water
"New Orleans also has some unique leadership problems. The city is one of the most corrupt in the nation. Residents consider themselves survivors not only of the climate and weather, but also their own elected officials. The police force often provides ugly headlines about corrupt cops, and other city officials aren’t much better. It is a wild and lawless city even in the best of times. The murder rate in the city is one of the highest in the nation, ten times the national average, and higher than many cities in Iraq." [4]
"Rather than handing over the reconstruction to the same corrupt elite that failed the city so spectacularly, the effort could be led by groups like Douglass Community Coalition" Let the People Rebuild New Orleans
"New Orleans, top to bottom, was the most corrupt city I ever lived in." (New Orleans) City Hall corruption sweep begins
"The corruption in city hall was horrible, and it was the same thing at the levee board," Peggy Wilson told Cybercast News Service. "The corruption in Louisiana and in the City of New Orleans goes down to the bone." New Orleans Corrupt 'Down to the Bone,' Former Pol Charges
"What left so many at the mercy of Katrina was poverty. In the greater New Orleans area, 65,000 minority residents lived in poverty before Katrina, compared with 85,000 whites. " The Hurricane Hit That Hit the Poor
"The FBI says Louisiana last year ranked third in the nation in public corruption cases" Why is Louisiana so poor?
"New Orleans is still the lowest paid department" 2006 POLICEPAY Index Just Released
"New Orleans is always at or near the top in the national ranking for murder rate. The rate of murders per thousand residents there has been ten times the national average in recent years. This high murder rate cannot be explained by poverty, and demographics. New Orleans’ murder rate is also ten times as high as New York City’s, a city once thought ungovernable, which also has a large majority of non-white residents."
"But the city, in which corruption and crime has always been rampant, was unusually ill equipped to deal with the kind of catastrophe." New Orleans myths: The numbers tell a different story
Is New Orleans changing colors?
"The North Shore region is NOT Baton Rouge and NOT New Orleans" [5]
Understand the Recruitment and Retention Needs and Challenges of the New Orleans Police Department
"New Orleans is among the bottom fourth of 200 U.S. metro areas in a ranking of the country's best performing cities." New Orleans is No. 167 in 'Best Cities' list
"By almost every statistical measure, New Orleans is a bad place to be poor. Half the city's households make less than $28,000 a year, and 28% of the population lives in poverty.
In the late 1990s, the state's school systems ranked dead last in the nation in the number of computers per student (1 per 88), and Louisiana has the nation's second-highest percentage of adults who never finished high school. By the state's own measure, 47% of the public schools in New Orleans rank as "academically unacceptable."
And Louisiana is the only one of the 50 states where the state legislature doesn't allocate money to pay for the legal defense of indigent defendants. The Associated Press reported this year that it's not unusual for poor people charged with crimes to stay in jail for nine months before getting a lawyer appointed.
These government failures are not merely a matter of incompetence. Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption: as former congressman Billy Tauzin once put it, "half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment."
That's putting it mildly. Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes (Mississippi is No. 1). Recent scandals include the conviction of 14 state judges and an FBI raid on the business and personal files of a Louisiana congressman." Why we couldn’t save the people of New Orleans
"On the other hand, Houston is a nagging example of the prosperous city New Orleans could have become, but probably never will." New Orleans: I Have Seen the Future, and It's Houston
"New Orleans has one of the highest murder rates in the country. By mid-August of this year, 192 murders had been committed in New Orleans, 'nearly 10 times the national average,"
"The Sept. 4 New York Daily News reported "Louisiana and New Orleans have a long, well-known reputation for corruption... Adjusted for population size, the state ranks third in the number of elected officials convicted of crimes"
New Orleans City Council President: 'Maybe God's Going To Cleanse Us'
"The city has a 40% illiteracy rate, and over 50% of black ninth graders will not graduate in four years. Louisiana spends on average $4,724 per child's education and ranks 48th in the country for lowest teacher salaries. The equivalent of more than two classrooms of young people drop out of Louisiana schools every day and about 50,000 students are absent from school on any given day. Far too many young black men from New Orleans end up enslaved in Angola Prison, a former slave plantation where inmates still do manual farm labor, and over 90% of inmates eventually die in the prison. It is a city where industry has left, and most remaining jobs are are low-paying, transient, insecure jobs in the service economy."
"Louisiana politics is famously corrupt, but with the tragedies of this week our political leaders have defined a new level of incompetence" Notes From Inside New Orleans
"New Orleans is, and for a long time has been, the opposite of a city that works. It perennially ranks near the bottom on practically every basic measure of civic health." IN THE RUINS
"but those efforts could be undermined by forces that have long beset the city -- a tradition of corruption and dysfunction and a weak economy that clouded New Orleans's future years before the rains began in August." Burdens of Past Limit New Orleans's Future
"New Orleans has one of the highest poverty rates of any of America’s big cities. According to a report by Total Community Action, a New Orleans public advocacy group, nearly one out of three New Orleans residents live below the poverty level, the majority of who are black. A spokesperson for the United Negro College Fund noted that the city’s poor live in some of the most dilapidated, and deteriorated housing in the nation." Looting New Orleans and America's Poverty Crisis
"The second job is less obvious. New Orleans’s immutable civic shame, before and after Katrina, is not racism, poverty, or inequality, but murder—a culture of murder so vicious and so pervasive that it terrorizes and numbs the whole city.
In 2003, New Orleans’s murder rate was nearly eight times the national average—and since then, murder has increased. In 2002 and 2003, New Orleans had the highest per capita city homicide rate in the United States, with 59 people killed per year per 100,000 citizens—compared to New York City’s seven. New Orleans is a New York with nearly 5,000 murders a year—an unlivable place. The city’s economy has sputtered over the past generation partly because local and state officials have failed to do the most elementary job of government: to secure the personal safety of citizens." Who's killing New Orleans by Nicole Gelinas, City Journal
"Gotham, economically and fiscally, is New Orleans' polar opposite. New Orleans has long had a weak economy and thus a weak tax base, while New York draws resources from some of the richest taxpayers in the world." N.Y and New Orleans
"While many indicators regarding New Orleans' economy are disturbing at best, Reynolds finds plenty of positive impact resulting from the gentrification trend." Best of New Orleans 09 30 03
"The ports of South Louisiana (POSL) and New Orleans, which run north and south of the city, are as important today as at any point during the history of the republic. On its own merit, POSL is the largest port in the United States by tonnage and the fifth-largest in the world. It exports more than 52 million tons a year, of which more than half are agricultural products—corn, soybeans, and so on. A large proportion of US agriculture flows out of the port. Even more cargo, nearly 69 million tons, comes in through the port—including not only crude oil, but chemicals and fertilizers, coal, concrete, and so on." The Ghost City
- Pardon me, but what does any of this have to do with MRGO?
[edit] MR-GO and the Port of New Orleans Ship Traffic Examined in DETAIL
I'm taking the liberty of interspersing bolded comments throughout this section to show the contributor why it gets repeatedly removed. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC) Measuring ship traffic though the channel only tells a tiny part of the complete economic story of MR-GO. The Port of New Orleans as well as New Orleans itself has not been a great place to do business. According to whom?
According to the all those who have left Louisiana, according to the population decrease, according to the DECREASE in the number of business, according to the lack of Fortune 500 companies. The number one private employer is TULANE UNIVERSITY. Doesn't that say something to you?
Tulane University: #1 Private Employer of New Orleans
That's the facts period.
[according to those who left Louisiana and the rest of the United States, that's who....When the only state in the nation that loses a congressperson because of a population decrease, that should ring bells and whistles to the economy.....too bad you can't figure that out, those that don't spend all day in Wiki world can easily see that]
-
- It doesn't matter whether or not I can figure that out, and it doesn't matter or not whether you can figure it out. Please read Wikipedia's policy on original research to understand why we can't come to even correct or obvious conclusions. We're not here to report our own evaluations; we're here to report the research of others.
To move containers from one place to another, shipping companies like to ship to places that have a large populations or even growing populations as it saves costs in shipping directly to the end consumer. According to whom? However, New Orleans population, as well as Louisiana's, has been decreasing ever since the oil bust. Addtionally, New Orleans and Louisiana with it's backroom politics and numerous "brother-in-law" deals has been one of the worst places to do business in America. According to whom?
Governor Blanco If so, please provide with with a pointer to Governor Blanco saying exactly this. WP:V; Wikipedia articles have to be verifiable.
This comment is all that is needed to verify everything said.
In reaction to this, businesses have moved away from New Orleans and Louisiana. Who says this is in reaction to backroom politics etc.? The hundreds of thousands who have left Louisiana in the past, that's who. OK, then it should be easy for you to provide hundreds of thousands, or at least one, citation. WP:CITE: cite your sources.
Ship traffic in other cities has surpassed New Orleans. Cities like Houston have easily surpassed New Orleans in total containers shipped. For example, in 2003, New Orleans had 255,374 shipping containers and Houston had 1,024,755 shipping containers pass through. U.S. Waterborne Container Traffic by Port/Waterway in 2003
After the Hurricane Katrina disaster, it was widely reported that the Port of New Orleans was around 4th largest in the U.S. However, this was measured using "tonnage" as opposed to "containers". The ship traffic going though the Port of New Orleans is mainly grain, coal, , and oil; a heavy type of shipment as compared to TV's, computers, etc. What's the relevance of this fact? Let's see, do gas and oil cost as must as TV and computers? NO, what about grain, how much does that cost? Does bread cost as much as a computer? I don't know. You need to show us what the relevance of this fact is.
The depth of MR-GO is also not good for large ocean going container ships that can carry on average, 5000 containers. Ships now are being built to hold 7000 containers and there are some now being build to handle 13,000 containers. Containerization
Because of the increasing size of ships so that shipping companies can lower the costs to transport goods, MR-GO's channel depth can easily limit ship traffic.
Port fees and assisted robotic container unloading cranes also affect whether a shipping company chooses the Port of New Orleans as it's off loading destination. Unions, in order to protect their jobs, typically protest the use of such equipment to unload and load ships because it would be faster and cheaper than older methods. According to whom? [According to laws of SCIENCE and PHYSICS, that's who! Why don't you read the Wikipedia's containerization article, that will tell you OR perhaps you will edit that entry as well] This delay in unloading and loading a ship causes shipping companies to search elsewhere for a better facilty to unload and load their shipping containers. According to whom?
- See the laws of business, ecnomics and just plain common sense...if you wouldn't hang around here in Wiki world all day and get out into the REAL world where actual readers are, you might have that common knowledge. Ever heard of the closest route between two points is a straight line? Next thing you will tell me is that contributors have to source that the number 2 comes after the number 1..."Who said number 2 comes after number 1? Knock off with the personal insults; you have no idea who you are dealing with. There's no such thing as "common knowledge". We can only present verifiable facts.
Ports such as Long Beach, California have around 50 robotic assisted cranes to quickly unload ships where as ports such a New Orleans only have 4. Accordingly, ships can sit for days waiting in line to be unloaded thus increasing costs and ultimately make the end customer wait, this is especially true with most ships carrying thousands of containers.
U.S. Seaports: At the Crossroads of the Global Economy
Additionally, because the winding nature of the Mississippi river (e.g. hair pin turns) and the many sand bars and hidden currents, the costs of pilots navigating the Mississippi river are some of the highest in America which also increases shipping costs though the Port of New Orleans. Who says it's because of the nature of the Mississippi? The pilots say so, as well as all the companies that navigate it. Not to mention the LAWS of PHYSICS and common sense that's who!!! So it will be simple to [[WP:CITE|cite your sources.
Anon said it, scientists say it, mathematicians say it.
The Port of New Orleans, which is MR-GO's final destination, is what MR-GO was originally created for. As such, the blame for MR-GO's economic failures should not heaped on MR-GO itself, the "highway or route", but should be shared with the Port of New Orleans, the city of New Orleans and Louisiana, the "destination". Who says the bame should be shared? Whose opinion is this? This isn't really an opinion, it's an economic fact backed up with hard numbers No, it's an opinion. If someone else besides you is of this opinion, it should be easy to find citable sources.
Unfortunately, the Port of New Orleans as well as the surrounding city has been viewed as a corrupt and crime ridden city Who has viewed it as such? [those 40 thousand of people who left, that's who] THen it wil be easy to find citable sources.
such that businesses have gone elsewhere, Who has stated this is why businesses have moved? All former New Orleans and Louisianas, that's who, not to mention NOLA.com, the State of Louisiana, and the City of New Orleans and likewise, MR-GO's ship traffic has also went elsewhere. Who says this is why traffic has moved elsewhere? Those former Louisianas that left, that's who, not to mention the rest of the United States and Congress who already accused the Louisiana legistlation of mis-using funds. Then it will be easy to present citable sources.
Simple business logic suggest, "it's not that shipping companies don't use MR-GO, it's that shipping companies don't like to use the Port of New Orleans or do business with the city of New Orleans or Louisiana." Who is being quoted here? anon that's who. In that case we cannot include it. WP:NOR]
Shipping companies such as "Lykes Brothers" originally from New Orleans have out of Louisiana moved to Tampa, Florida. What does this particular example have to do with the general case? Lykes Brothers was a HUGE company in New Orleans..why did they move to begin with why they originated in New Orleans, well it's because it's bad and corrupt city? Then you can provide verifiable, citable sources.
Crime Rate for Selected Cities
The facts and opinions stated here might very well be accurate. However, Wikipedia requires that our facts be sourced and that the opinions presented not be our own. That's why all the "who says" above. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 01:08, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] MR-GO and the Port of New Orleans
This section, previously titled with the rhetorical question "IS MR-GO a FAILURE or is it the PORT OF NEW ORLEANS the REAL CULPRIT", has serious neutrality problems. It is essentially an editorial and is taking a specific point of view.
The section does contains two references to facts. But some significant facts in this section are also unsourced: "Long Beach, California have around 50 robotic assisted cranes to quickly unload ships where as ports such a New Orleans only have 4," and "the costs of pilots navigating the Mississippi river are some of the highest in America."
The serious problem is that most of the statements in the section are opinions ("New Orleans itself has not been a great place to do business," "the Port of New Orleans as well as the surrounding city has been viewed as a corrupt and crime ridden city," and "It could be said that, 'it's not that shipping companies don't use MR-GO, it's that shipping companies don't like to use the Port of New Orleans or do business with the city of New Orleans or Louisiana.'"
Unfortunately, these opinions are not attributed to any sources and do not meet Wikipedia's verifiability policy.
If this section is to be kept, it needs to be provided with source citations that put these opinions in the mouths of authorities who are well enough known for a reader to be able to judge their reliability. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:24, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
- I've commented out the entire section prior to total excision. I found it in a search for "It must be noted", which I'm on a crusade against -- and a section that uses it twice in three inches is pretty automatically POV. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:30, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
- I've filed an RFC on this. I don't want to get into a revert war. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 20:41, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
- It's seems you get in a lot of wars with every single topic on Wikipedia.
- What's your basis for saying that MR-GO's traffic levels are one ship per day? Do you even have proof of that? What's your source for the "expected level of traffic" to begin with? You don't even have a source for that. And the source that you may find doesn't even say how they measured the expected traffic level to begin with. Is it by tonnage or containers or ships? How about the economic value? Just how do you measure that? What about the those enviromentalist? What's your source for that? Which environmentalists are you talking about? Do you have a source for that as well? Why not eliminate that entire section all together as it appears you have some bias in everthing?
Why don't YOU be clear since you think you know what's best for everyone? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.252.121.14 (talk • contribs) 00:31, March 15, 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not the one adding large amounts of unsourced point-of-view to the article. Read Dpbsmith's comment above, which spells out the problem better than I have. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 00:55, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Sheesh
Dear ANON: please LEARN to post without SCREAMING in RANDOM CAPITALS. It looks WACKY AND dErAngeD. Thanks, -- Infrogmation 03:43, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Reasons for removing the "Criticism"
I removed all the items that have remained unsourced for weeks. After I did this, this is the material that was left:
- Criticism of the MR-GO and the Port of New Orleans
- In 2003, New Orleans had 255,374 shipping containers while nearby Houston had 1,024,755 shipping containers pass through. U.S. Waterborne Container Traffic by Port/Waterway in 2003 While the Port of New Orleans is often said to be the 4th largest in the U.S., this is true only when measured in "tonnage," not "containers". The ship traffic going though the Port of New Orleans is mainly grain, coal , and oil; a heavy type of shipment as compared to much more expensive TV's, computers, etc. (See also Half of nations grain exports Port of South Louisiana)
- Port fees and assisted robotic container unloading cranes also affect whether a shipping company chooses the Port of New Orleans as its off loading destination. Ports such as Long Beach, California have around 50 robotic assisted cranes to quickly unload ships where as ports such a New Orleans only have 4. (See also U.S. Seaports: At the Crossroads of the Global Economy, Port of Long Beach stats, Port of Rotterdam, Port of New Orleans)
I dithered on whether or not to leave this remaining material. It's seems adequately sourced (I haven't checked the sources, though), but on the whole seems too pointless to retain. All the important points in the section are unsourced opinion.
A section that marshals published criticism of the Port of New Orleans that is relevant to MR-GO would be encyclopedic, but an unsourced editorial of plausible personal opinion is not. The issue, as always, is not whether the content is reasonable opinion, but whether it is traceable to a reliable published source. It may be, but it is the job of the contributor to provide that traceability. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:57, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
- Please note, the user that added this info (Aficionado) is a sockpuppet of Zephram Stark, who is a banned user. His edits should be reverted. --JW1805 (Talk) 15:10, 17 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] General material on New Orleans' corruption doesn't belong here
Yes, the material on New Orleans being corrupt is reasonably well sourced. The problem is, most of it isn't about the MR-GO and doesn't bear on it in any obvious way. Subject to neutrality and verifiability, this material might be appropriate for New Orleans or Port of New Orleans. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:03, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, than you cannot make the following statement for MR-GO:
"The outlet has never drawn expected traffic levels. Traffic along the MR-GO averages about one vessel per day, about 15 percent of the Port of New Orleans total traffic"
You cannot make, infer, mis-lead, or leave out critical information that would lead the reader to think that MR-GO has been a failure. And that's what YOU are doing. Information that would further educate the reader needs to be at the same level and in the same paragraph. Not some link the reader is not familiar with. True information must be equally convenient not some link to a huge discussion page where the reader has to find this information.
- Well, that wasn't my sentence. But, since it isn't sourced, I've removed it. I've replaced it with one for which there is a verifiable source citation:
- According to a congressional hearing statement by Scott Faber of the Environmental Defense Fund, "Traffic on the MRGO has fallen by more than 50 percent since 1986. Today, less than one oceangoing vessel per day, on average, uses this man-made short cut, which costs approximately $13 million annually to maintain. Like many waterways constructed by the Corps, the MRGO has failed to attract as much traffic as the Corps predicted when the project was constructed."
- What Faber says might be true and might not be true, but It's a verifiable fact that Scott Faber did make that statement. The reader can now decide for themselves what they think of the Environmental Defense Fund, and whether or not "failed to attract as much traffic as the Corps predicted" means "The outlet has never drawn expected traffic levels."
- If you feel this is not neutral, by all means add solid opinions from published sources with citations that say MR-GO has been a success and has lived up to expectations. My guess is there's someone in the Army Corps of Engineers who might have said something like that... but you have to find it. Or, published opinion that MR-GO would be successful if not managed by corrupt local port authorities. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:11, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Snipping unsupported statements
In regard to this statement:
- While one could easily mis-interprete the above statement that MR-GO is a failure, MR-GO should not be blamed for it's performance as the final destination, the Port and City of New Orleans and Louisiana is a area of economic decline as well as a significant population decline.
I asked for a source citation to a published source, expressing this opinion. In response, this was supplied: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/05/BUGG4H2FIB1.DTL.
However, this reference does not mention MR-GO or New Orleans at all. That is verging on bad faith. It is not a proper citation as required by the verifiability policy. It is just a piece of supporting evidence for what I continue to see as 24.252.122.185's own opinion and original research. 24.252.122.185, please read and understand Wikipedia's policies on verifiability, source citation, and WP:NPOV neutrality. Please stop trying to use this article as a dumping ground for a personal, though supportable attack on New Orleans and the Port of New Orleans. If you can find something like an editorial in a major newspaper that says specifically that MR-GO would succeed if properly managed, that would be relevant and could go in the article. So far, you not done this. Dpbsmith (talk) 11:59, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Just checked this one:
- However, businesses and the Army Corp of Engineers still recommend it's usage because this short cut saves time and money in the area of inexpensive shipping.
Once again, the purported reference—a very interesting read, by the way, almost creepy in its prescience—Gone with the Water by National Geographic does not mention MR-GO at all. It certainly does not say that businesses and Army Corps of Engineers still recommend its usage.
24.252.122.185, I'm very upset about your supplying "references" that do not actually bear any connection to the statements they are supposed to be supporting. Please do not do this again. Dpbsmith (talk) 14:16, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
