In the nineteenfifties, after Louisiana had been made nervous by the St .Lawrence Seaway, the Corps of Engineers built the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shipping canal that saves forty miles by traversing marsh country straight from New Orleans to the Gulf.
In the nineteen-fifties, after Louisiana had been made nervous by the St .Lawrence Seaway, the Corps of Engineers built the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, a shipping canal that saves forty miles by traversing marsh country straight from New Orleans to the Gulf.
Navigational channels like the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet were dug; these carried salt water into what had been freshwater marshes, killing trees and grasses and inviting erosion.
On the eastern edge of New Orleans, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal — MR-GO ("Mister Go") for short — provides a shortcut for shipping.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the government is immune from lawsuits for decisions made by the corps that might have left the 76-mile channel, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet or MR-GO, vulnerable.
A preliminary analysis showed it was not cost-effective to keep the channel, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, open "to both shallow and deep-draft navigation," the report said, recommending it be closed by "an armored earthen dam".
And, more recently, Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr. of Federal District Court ruled on Nov. 18, 2009, that the Army Corps of Engineers' mismanagement of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet was directly responsible for flood damage of homes in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Residents also want assurances that the levees will be strong enough to protect them, and they demand the closing of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, the shortcut shipping canal that acted as a conduit for the storm surge to deluge them.
If upheld, the ruling could force the federal government to pay tens of millions of dollars, if not more, to homeowners whose property was lost or damaged by water from the navigation canal, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known as MR-GO (pronounced Mister Go).
In November 2009, Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. of federal District Court ruled that poor maintenance of a major navigation channel, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet or MR-GO, by the Army Corps of Engineers led to some of the worst flooding after the hurricane.
Rabalais team-teaches biological oceanography at Louisiana State University, and continues her own research on Mississippi River-Gulf of Mexico interactions, forming the world's second largest dead zone.
