Feds should join in saving the coast

We need coordination between the state and federal government in preserving the coast of Louisiana. Among other things, Louisiana’s coastal restoration problems are being multiplied by the different viewpoints of governmental agencies that are involved in our survival.

For example, the federal government will not let the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers pump sediment it is dredging from the bottom of the Mississippi River to improve navigation into the wetlands and barrier islands, which would help build up and preserve our coast. They are turning their backs on what could be a more natural combination of benefits from what our federal and state governments are doing to improve our business movement and land preservation in this day and age.

Helping navigation along public waterways is a purpose of government and so is preserving and restoring our coast. It would be so easy for the Corps to pump the sediment it pulls up to ease navigation into the nearby wetlands and build up our coast. But instead, the Corps must haul the sediment down the river and dump it into the Gulf of Mexico where it serves no benefit. Gov. Bobby Jindal says they have tried to convince the federal government to let the Corps help build up the coast by spreading it in areas along the coast where it is needed but have been turned down.

So, the State of Louisiana has to pay for its own lengthy pipelines and dredge its own sediment to serve the purpose. Such is a waste of taxpayer money and that is a case where democracy does not work.

When we can benefit from a task that can serve multi purposes, the governmental agencies involved in providing it should be required to put it into the hands of an independent agency that can come up with the most economic and beneficial way of serving all the purposes. That would be intelligent democracy.

If the United States of America can consider itself the country in the world that can best provide the needs of the people, it should show it by developing the means by which it can be done. And sometimes that requires letting one agency of government satisfy more than one need when they can all be accomplished more economically and satisfactorily together.