A hearing last night at MLK School drew 100 residents - with more than 30 speaking out against a Corps of Engineers proposal to replace an existing lock in the Industrial Canal (Inner Harbor Navigation Canal) with a larger, deep draft lock.
This new plan and report from the Corps comes despite concerns from the adjacent community – and neighborhood organizations – about the environmental impacts of dredging toxic materials from the canal. Groups such as the Corps Reform Network and local Citizens Against Widening the Industrial Canal (CAWIC) have also called into question the economics of the project, outlined in their recent report “Failure to Hold Water.” And in 2006, a United States District Court concluded that the Corps had not met all of the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and ordered that construction be suspended until these issues could be adequately resolved.
The Times-Picayune’s Jen DeGregorio reported on last night’s
public meeting in “Critics say lock plans are unfair”:
“The Army Corps of Engineers' latest plan to build a new Industrial Canal lock drew sharp criticism Wednesday night from activists who say the controversial project unfairly puts shipping interests above the environmental health of neighborhoods along the waterway.
Pam Dashiell, chairwoman of the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, said the new lock would usher in "gangs of barges and deep-draft ships to a community that is struggling."
"Are you trying to kill us again?" Dashiell said, referring to the breached floodwalls that allowed Katrina's floodwaters to inundate neighborhoods abutting the Industrial Canal.
Dashiell was one of more than 30 angry citizens who railed against the new lock Wednesday night at the Martin Luther King Jr. Charter School in the Lower 9th Ward, where the corps presented its new report of the environmental consequences of the project.”
Additional background on the Corps’ new lock plans:
- "Price for new lock swells to $1.3 billion, corps says”,
The Times-Picayune, October 16, 2008
- "Corps releases report on Industrial Canal Lock Replacement Project", October 2008. Comments due on
Nov. 24, 2008
- "Economics of the New Lock Project for the Industrial Canal", WWLTV New Orleans Channel 4, Dec. 2007
