Mitch Landrieu: “this amendment that I offer tries to move forward a very difficult situation that we are faced with in Louisiana about…”

“this amendment that I offer tries to move forward a very difficult situation that we are faced with in Louisiana about how to protect not just the New Orleans city proper but the greater metropolitan area and parts of south Louisiana from flooding in the future. As you know, Mr. President, because you have been gracious enough to be one of the Senators to go walk through the neighborhoods and see the flooding, being a firsthand witness, it wasn't just the hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, but it was the breaking of levee systems. Some of those levees were long industrial canals that served this great port which, together with the South Louisiana Port, is the largest port system in America. Some of these levees were along the lake. Some of them were along what we call the London Avenue Canal. There was a project that was designed and structured by the Corps of Engineers back in the 1930s and 1940s called the Mississippi River gulf outlet. I think you actually stood on that levee, Mr. President, and looked to see where that breach occurred. This avenue was thought--at the time we built it and designed it, like so many large civil works projects we have done in this Nation--to be a positive effort to help expand the opportunities for the port for trade and commerce. For a while, it did serve that purpose.…”