Should New Orleans learn water reclamation from the Dutch?

Question

Seriously, Hurricane Gustav is likely once again (IE the second hurricane after Katrina) going to crush New Orleans.

Meanwhile, the entire country of Holland is under sea level...holding water back using a fantastic system of dams and sand dunes.

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Which begs the question, why not design a dam/sand-dune-based system in the New Orleans area...or even reclaim land from the sea to lower land prices and encourage more residents to boost New Orleans' economy?! And likely produce dams that are category 5 proof?

We've been using the corps to build New Orleans' dams twice...and, it seems, they are not certain they will work this time either.

Answer 1

well its not the city but the federal government that has charge of the levee system. the army corps is building them & they answer to the federal government. but I respect your idea I guess it would be too costly to implement. there was much talk of this post kat & i'm sure the conversation will begin anew.

Answer 2

The US Army Corps of Engineers IS using Dutch consultants.

New Orleans doesn't have dunes and the land below sea level is on drained swamps (not land reclaimed from the sea) so some of the specific construction techniques employed in the Netherlands don't apply.

The problem is the government (in this case all levels and not just federal) isn't taking all the necessary lessons from the Dutch experience.  Holland had its "Katrina" in 1953 when the flood protection system failed during a North Sea storm, killed about 2000 people, and flooded a huge area.  The Dutch responded with improved, dikes, multiple layers of protection, and "compartmentalization.  

The USACE is taking advice on repairing and improving the levees, but multiple layers and compartmentalization are NOT being implemented or even considered.

The reasons for that are:

The USACE is an iron-bound bureaucracy and simply sees anything not right at the water's edge as a state or local government responsibility (not their problem").

The Blanco administration was too busy looting the Road Home program to worry about anything as silly as flood protection. I don't think the new Jindal administraiton is even aware of the issue.

The Nagin administration has been too busy looting contracts and worshiping Nagin to do anything else. Local officials from the neighboring parishes have been too busy trying to manipulate the levee-building process to get the USACE to drain swamps on public land. The "new land" would then be sold to their friends for pennies, and their friends would sell the land for huge profits.

It must be the lack of altitude.