U.S. Army Corps Flood Failures on Mississippi Demand New Vision

I stood at the edge of the Mississippi in New Orleans last May, the river so high that a fat wake would have sent swirling waters over the levee’s edge.

That day the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began opening the Morganza Spillway above Baton Rouge, Louisiana, routing water from the swollen Mississippi down the Atchafalaya River. To keep the Mississippi from overtopping levees in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the diversion inundated farms and prime oyster-rich inlets.