Vernon
Q ..
Yes, I've heard that--I forget who was talking to me about that. They feared for their lives
if they ever went up there to try to open that thing up.
A
Oh, they have tried, they were getting prepared to do it a couple of times; and they never
have done it, but they were really thinking they were going to have to. That was always
one of the big questions with the Secretary's office--What is your plan for making that
thing work and how is it going to work? Will it really work? If it isn't going to work,
why don't we do something else What can we do? Are there any other solutions? They
looked at trying to come up with other solutions, but there just really isn't anything that
would take the place of the floodway because it will carry so much water.
But that was one of the problems that the Water Control Management Committee had.
That was another committee that we had. The Water Control Management
was
composed of all the chiefs of the water control branches in the division offices. We met
regularly to solve, try to solve, some of these problems like operating the New Madrid
floodway, problems with TVA and the operation of Kentucky-Barkley projects--one TVA
and one Corps--and connected with a channel between them. We had problems with TVA
on that.
Then all the concerns about the Atchafalaya floodway and sediment that was accumulating
down there. What's going to happen when so much sediment gets down there that it is
up? Or when is the Atchafalaya going to take, capture the Mississippi. When is the
levee system going to fail? The people at Louisiana State University tell you it's going to
happen anytime now. Professors down there ran articles about it all the time. Whose
going to win the battle, the Corps or Mother Nature?
Q ..
Well, there will be some time that Mother Nature is going to win.
A
Well, probably will eventually but
Q ..
They'd save a lot of money in New Orleans, won`t have to worry about all that levees and
pumps and all that stuff.
A ..
Well, it'll be right back there. They want the navigation in New Orleans. There's nothing
down there at the mouth of the Atchafalaya. Morgan City is about all you got down there,
there is little navigation. So they don't want all that water down there. Even if it did
break through in a spectacular flood, they would go right back to recapturing it.
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