The Dutch in New Orleans

I read a very interesting article in The Times-Picayune a few weeks ago about New Orleans being compared to the Netherlands. According to the article:

The North Sea's furious winters can kick up storm surges more than 13 feet high -- a lethal threat to a country where millions live below sea level, some as much as 22 feet down. And the Dutch have devised a peerless system of flood defenses -- one of the world's engineering marvels -- to keep that water out.

Giant barriers straddle ocean inlets, their gates poised to slam shut to repel the invading sea. Massive earthen dams run for miles, blocking off vast areas once open to the North Sea, now converted to freshwater lakes and new living space.

Those are among the master strokes. But the Dutch system is also noted for its subtlety. The only thing lying between the tiny red-roofed village of Ter Heijde and the sea, a scant 200 yards away, is a big pile of sand.

It's no ordinary dune, however. Monitored and maintained with obsessive care, it's built to absorb pounding blows from ocean waves. It may erode, requiring repair, but it won't fall down. It's engineered to fail less than once every 10,000 years, making it 50 times safer than the New Orleans levees were supposed to be before Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed them.

The article goes on to say that:

The Netherlands' flood defenses -- a sculpted landscape of dunes, dikes, dams, barriers, sluices and pumps designed to repel the twin threats of ocean storm surges and river flooding -- are light years ahead of the New Orleans area's busted-up levee system…

There was a time when New Orleans led the world in flood control and the Netherlands looked west for guidance, importing the huge screw pumps designed by Albert Baldwin Wood that had drained low-lying areas and greatly expanded New Orleans' habitable turf. Today, the Dutch system offers a trove of examples, from policy ideas to engineering fixes, that could be useful to New Orleans. Indeed, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu next month will lead a delegation of Louisiana officials and congressional colleagues to the Netherlands to study them.

The Dutch system works better now because of the Dutch’s diligence and care of their system.

Their philosophy, shaped by centuries of combating floods, is to fight water -- but also to accommodate it rather than just containing it, preserving natural flows where possible. "There's one important lesson we've learned as Dutch -- we're fighting a heroic fight against nature, the sea and the rivers," said Ted Sluijter, a spokesman for the giant Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier. "But if you fight nature, nature is going to strike back. Water needs space…"

The Dutch Ministry of Water, Public Works and Transportation spends $1.5 billion a year on flood defense and water management. If the United States spent that much on a per-citizen basis, it would cost upward of $30 billion annually, seven or eight times the Corps of Engineers' annual budget of $4 billion…

For centuries, the Dutch protected themselves by ringing settled areas and farmland with dikes, essentially the same approach used in south Louisiana. But the 1953 flood revealed a big weakness in that strategy: Storm surge water could move far inland through the estuaries, which were open to the sea.

This was also a key failing of the New Orleans system, Battjes and other Dutch engineers say: The region's levee-lined canals were conduits for Katrina's storm surge to pour into the heart of the city. From the east, water flowed into the Intracoastal Waterway and Industrial Canal, where floodwalls were topped and then collapsed, flooding the Lower 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish and eastern New Orleans. From Lake Pontchartrain, it flowed into the 17th Street and London Avenue drainage canals, which were breached, flooding central New Orleans.

In the wake of the 1953 flood, engineers and policy-makers presented the Netherlands with a choice: They could build dikes higher and stronger as they had always done in the past. Or they could take a different, more ambitious approach, building large barriers across estuaries and other open waterways.

The biggest flaw of New Orleans' pre-Katrina levee system was that it provided a low level of safety: It was built only to withstand storm surges from some, but not all, Category 3 hurricanes and was virtually guaranteed to fail in a stronger storm. In retrospect, engineers say it didn't even live up to its Category 3 billing. In fact, no one knew precisely what level of safety it provided because of its many weak points, changes in the landscape over time and the corps' outdated assessments.

Such problems are inconceivable in the Netherlands. Urbanized areas of the country -- such as the region surrounding Ter Heijde, which includes The Hague and Rotterdam -- are engineered to withstand the kind of storm surge that comes only once in 10,000 years. More sparsely populated areas, such as those protected by the Delta Works, are safe against a 1-in-4,000-year flood. The lowest level of protection, found in rural areas, is for a 1-in-1,250-year flood. All are many times safer than New Orleans ever was.

So all this talk of the Dutch could only mean one thing that the Dutch ambassador is coming to Louisiana to view the devastation in New Orleans. On Nov. 28, the Dutch ambassador to the United States toured New Orleans on a greyhound bus.

The gesture was partly symbolic and sharply political: a signal to congressional naysayers that smart engineering can overcome even the most difficult water-management challenges, said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who escorted Boudewijn J. van Eenennaam on a bus tour that included St. Bernard Parish, eastern New Orleans and Lakeview…

The conceptual design is an early step in a two-year, $8 million study that follows the corps' commitment to rebuild the levee system to pre-Katrina strength -- able to withstand the equivalent of a slow-moving Category 3 storm -- in time for the June 1, 2006, start of the next hurricane season. The study will explore the feasibility of strengthening flood defenses to resist a Category 5 storm.

Landrieu said she is not waiting for the study to be completed. She is pressing ahead in a campaign to persuade Congress to dedicate the money necessary for state-of-the-art protection, including restoration of wetlands between population centers and the Louisiana coast…

Two-thirds of the Netherlands is below sea level, Landrieu said, citing the country's experience as evidence of what can be done if the political will is there and money is provided.

"The Netherlands have done it," (Landrieu) said.

Making residents safe should be the first step, said van Eenennaam, who described the billions spent on flood protection as a sound investment based on what the protected areas contribute to the national economy. The New Orleans region is a major producer of seafood as well as oil and gas.

The ambassador said Dutch experts will continue to work closely with the United States as it seeks a solution…

Van Eenennaam said he will report back to his country about "what is needed here and what we can offer in the Netherlands."

The Netherlands invested in a world-class flood-protection system, he said, because it decided after the 1950s disaster that "this will never happen again."

Personally I think we should hire a team of Dutch to run the whole operation. I have been to the Netherlands a few times, and the whole country is very clean and well organized – or so it appeared to me. I think the main problem we are going to run into is, just like mentioned in earlier posts, corruption. Greedy politicians wanting to get their cut of the pie. Where does everyone think the original funding to keep the levees updated went?

On another note should preserving the wetlands be one of our main priorities in rebuilding New Orleans? I’m not trying to be callous. I truly am curious. I think that the Louisiana wetlands are often forgotten and preserving the coastland is important, but do we want the coastland to start past New Orleans? Because if we don't get some kind of levee/dike system in place the coast is going to be in a different area entirely.

I got the photo off the Royal Netherlands Embassy website. Is Landrieu purposefully trying to look real dejected? Or did they just catch her at a bad moment? Because if she is trying to appear devastated, it completely looks posed. Or maybe she’s sleeping? I will say Mary Landrieu does work hard for her money.

There was a press release on The Royal Netherlands Embassy website following the ambassador’s visit.

The visit by the Ambassador is the latest step in the cooperation between the Netherlands and the United States since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water have a memorandum of agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to share information on water issues. Soon after Katrina hit, the Dutch government sent water management experts and mobile water pumps to New Orleans to de-water the city. Ambassador Van Eenennaam will host Senator Landrieu and a bipartisan delegation of federal, state and local US officials to the Netherlands. The delegation will meet with Dutch officials in the government, non-profit and private sectors, as well as water management and environmental experts.

The press release goes on to publish the speech by Ambassador Boudewijn van Eenennaam to the America’s Wetland Reception, Nov 27, 2005 at the Wyndham New Orleans Hotel.

Let me come to the core right away: We’re here to talk about reconstruction, about restoration, about renaissance, about renewal. And renewal has several different dimensions, which I would like to – quickly – point out at the outset. So we know what we are talking about. The point of departure is that this city, this Gulf Coast, will have to be rebuilt. And it will be rebuilt. So, first there is the technical dimension -- physical construction and engineering. That is about building strong levees, a recovery of the Port of New Orleans, a rehabilitation of Mississippi River navigation, and a renovation of the Gulf Coast’s energy infrastructure.

Secondly, there is the economic dimension. Rebuilding this region will cost money, a lot of money. But it will be an investment that will yield good returns. I admire Senator Landrieu for passionately making the point that the Gulf Coast contributes substantially to the overall economy of the United States. And that reconstruction of this region is key to the local economy and also to the economic health of the rest of this mighty country.

Then there is a third dimension to the reconstruction of Louisiana and Mississippi, the human dimension. It may be the most important dimension of all. Rebuilding also means restoring dignity and power to the lives of the devastated people -- the human, the social, the cultural and the political vibrancy of this proud society. Not just restoration, like one does with historical relics. But about rebuilding to create a better, a stronger, society. It’s about lifting your spirits, restoring your hope. Proving that, for Americans, a problem is nothing more than a challenge to be met. An opportunity to demonstrate that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Like you did after 9/11.

I think the Dutch ambassador makes many good points, and the rebuilding process is going to take time and money. I think anyone that doesn’t think that is not looking at the big picture. Like many people know, when the state says highway construction is going to be completed in the spring that probably means December.

I like how the ambassador used the phrase, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going." The ambassador comes across as a very down-to-earth guy.

Now, let me talk about cost. The Dutch give nothing away to the Scots when it comes to being frugal. None of this comes cheap, but the costs are not as high as you might imagine. The total cost of the Delta Works was about $15 billion, in today’s dollars. The Maeslant barrier was $700 million and Room for Rivers will cost us $200 million a year for 10 years. These fixed costs amount to $18 billion
over 40 years. Not cheap, but certainly affordable.

On an annual basis, water protection costs the Dutch Government $500 million per year. We consider this a good investment, as insurance for $350 billion of Gross Domestic Product (out of a total $500 billion GDP). We get safety and
security behind the dikes at a cost of less than a penny on a dollar of GDP.

Your officials are discussing how to rebuild the Gulf Coast, what level of protection to provide. We have learned that underinvestment in infrastructure may be penny-wise, but also pound foolish. If people or businesses don’t feel secure, they won’t return. They won’t build anew. They won’t take entrepreneurial risks. That would be devastating to everyone here tonight and those you represent. It would also prevent the US from maximizing the return on investment already found in this amazing area.

I agree with the ambassador now is not the time to be pinching pennies. Now is the time to rebuild the levees correctly. New Orleans will be saving billions by building a strong defense against future hurricanes.