PANEL 6 : POLICY ISSUES

How New Ideas Get Implemented: Successful Strategies for Negotiating Change

The primary mission of the Applied Technology Council (ATC) is to provide research in natural hazards to structural engineers; located on the west coast, it has focused on innovative research in earthquakes. Beyond earthquakes, ATC is gathering research on flood and wind hazards, some of which may be included in American Society of Civil Engineers documents. Coulbourne has worked on flood resistant design and construction, based on a visit to the Netherlands. He concludes asking, how can we identify risks of flooding, how can we look at it differently than with 2D flood maps, and how could that help? - Bill Coulbourne

The Town of Jean Lafitte is known to have had a fast recovery from Hurricane Katrina by quickly organizing the Red Cross, National Guard, FEMA and volunteers to survey the number of homes damaged to prepare for FEMA's arrival. In addition, the Town organized the shipment and installation of seventeen pumps operating exactly when the water began to recede and finished in one week, and constructed a housing center for volunteers. The town of Lafitte has constructed a basin, nature trail into the wetlands and an ecological educational center connecting the wetlands to the fishing industry, the state and the country. Mayor Kerner lobbies in Washington D.C. for the funding of more preservation and restoration. - Tim Kerner

The current processes required to negotiate change through engineering at the local, state and federal level takes about 40 years. This is incompatible with the reality that coastal communities have much less time to improve ecosystems and ensure economic resilience that depends upon natural resources. Ecological studies need to lead to demonstration projects that connect centralized scientists, project managers, engineers, and construction managers. The Office of Coastal Activities is creating an economic analysis for coastal Louisiana that examines potential losses and repercussions of ecosystems and culture. Additionally, they are creating a tool that examines and compares the benefits of various structural and nonstructural solutions which will remove politics out of the decision making. - Garret Graves

The policy and process for creating a FEMA flood map lasts about four years. Generally, FEMA then delivers flood maps to a community through the mail, which often isn't received by the correct person. After Katrina, the Louisiana Transitional Recovery Office was able to hand-deliver revised flood maps and discuss changes with the Parish President thirty days before the official FEMA meeting. The Transitional Recovery Office in St. Bernard Parish created Open Houses for each coastal Parish receiving funding from FEMA, which gathered: FEMA professionals and flood plain managers, mapping contractors, representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers, and parish officials, mayors, presidents and permit offices. Additionally, the Office created the Louisiana Mapping Project which displays floodplain maps accessible to community members. - Michael Hunnicutt

Policy is a process, not a product, which identifies the problem, determines how to fix it, decides how to implement it, and then how to evaluate it. This process relies on effective communication and narrative. We have a moral obligation to ask whether or not these concepts of resilience and sustainability rely on "sacrificial people in sacrificial zones." - Richard Krajeski

We must examine existing infrastructure in New Orleans with the potential to minimize the consequences of flooding. For example, the Gentilly Ridge has at least 20 miles of railroad tracks, of which only three miles flooded during Katrina, and could be used to create polders. In order to implement polders, the Flood Protection and Drainage Committee of the Bring New Orleans Back Committee developed an engineered way to stop flooding under underpasses. They created a marketing plan in order to sell the idea to three groups: the funders, inhabitants who will be impacted by it, and those who can approve it. Their model showed that if eight polders throughout the City were in place before Katrina, the City's flooding would have been reduced from 82 to less than 40 percent. - Billy Marchal

What will it take to implement nonstructural policy considering the New Orleans policy landscape where risk distribution is ignored? The floodplain alliance, citizen groups, nonprofits and the State are working to overcome the lack of policy making in city government. In order to implement policies we not only need to identify the vision, but we also need to recognize those who are struggling to reach it in the community and within corrupt organizations. The New Orleans Office of Recovery had access to both funding and talent, but the Office ultimately failed. Once the Office successfully proposed ideas, revolving around nonstructural solutions, alternative energy, existing community activism, brought into law, they received sixty million dollars, and then the money disappeared. Nance demands that we ask why the money put aside for proposed ideas for recovery was used somewhere else. - Earthea Nance