Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal
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The Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet Canal (also known as MRGO, MR-GO or "Mr. Go") is a 66 mile (106 km) channel that provides a shorter route between the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans' inner harbor.
It is intended to be useful both as a shorter route than the twists of the Mississippi River and for deep-draft vessels that cannot fit through canal locks of the Industrial Canal. The canal extends northwest from deep water in the Gulf of Mexico to the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal at the Port of New Orleans. Authorization was provided by the Congress of the United States in the River and Harbor Act of 1956. Construction was completed in 1965.
Because of erosion, it was as much as three times as wide as originally constructed by 1989. When MR-GO was built, the channel was 650 feet wide at the surface, the average width is now 1,500 feet.
MR-GO's disappointing performance and possible causes
According to a congressional hearing statement by Scott Faber of the Environmental Defense Fund, "Traffic on the MRGO has fallen by more than 50 percent since 1986. Today, less than one oceangoing vessel per day, on average, uses this man-made short cut, which costs approximately $13 million annually to maintain. Like many waterways constructed by the Corps, the MRGO has failed to attract as much traffic as the Corps predicted when the project was constructed."Faber, Scott (2005), U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, Hearing Statements, Date: 11/09/2005[link] Prior to Hurricane Katrina, environmentalists and others, including voters in St. Bernard Parish whom the canal was intended to help, called for its closure. Southeastern Louisiana University, The SLU Poll: Attitudes Among St. Bernard Parish Voters About The Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, Date: 5/26/2004[link]
In 1997, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian organization dedicated to "the principles of free enterprise and limited government" attacked it on economic grounds:
- The promised economic development along the 76 mile channel in poverty-stricken St. Bernard Parish has yet to materialize. What the MRGO has delivered is an $8-plus million yearly maintenance plan for commercial and recreational waterborne traffic. The nearly $1 billion price tag for the less than two large container ships a day that use the channel is baffling, especially considering that the channel only shaved 37 miles off the original route. Worse, the MRGO has created numerous environmental problems. The rate of bank erosion is estimated at 15 feet per year.Barrett, David (1997), "Washington Waterworld" Competitive Enterprise Institute, May 1, 1997[link]
A proposal, see below, has already been discussed where gates would be added to solve both the storm surge that hurricanes produces while allowing ships to use the short cut.
Role in Hurricane Katrina disaster
Levees along MR-GO were breached in approximately 20 places along its length, directly flooding most of Saint Bernard Parish and New Orleans East. Storm surge from MR-GO is also a leading suspect in the three breaches of the Industrial Canal.
Three months before Katrina, Hassan Mashriqui, a storm surge expert at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center, called MR-GO a "critical and fundamental flaw" in the Corps' hurricane defenses, a "Trojan Horse" that could amplify storm surges 20 to 40 percent. Following the storm, an engineering investigation and computer modelling showed that the outlet intensified the initial surge by 20 percent, raised the height of the wall of water about three feet, and increased the velocity of the surge from 3 feet per second to 8 feet per second in the funnel. Mashriqui believes this contributed to the scouring that undermined the levees and floodwalls along the outlet and Industrial Canal. "Without MRGO, the flooding would have been much less," he said. "The levees might have overtopped, but they wouldn't have been washed away." The Army Corps of Engineers disputes this causality and maintains Katrina would have overwhelmed the levees with or without the contributing effect of MR-GO."Investigators Link Levee Failures to Design Flaws; Three Teams of Engineers Find Weakened Soil, Navigation Canal Contributed to La. Collapses." The Washington Post, October 24 2005[link]
Much public opinion in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana and lower portions of New Orleans blame MR-GO for the destruction of tens of thousands of homes.
The storm deposited twenty feet of silt in MR-GO, rendering it unusable except by small shallow draft vessels until it is dredged. Officials of St. Bernard Parish oppose its reopening. Others have called for re-opening it but equipping it with protective floodgates, or accelerating construction of the Inner Harbor Navigational Canal lock project, which when completed would allow MR-GO to be closed without affecting commercial traffic."Katrina may mean MR-GO has to go," New Orleans Times-Picayune, October 24 2005[link]
Proposals for adding gates
Similar to Rotterdam, it has been suggested that gates be added to MR-GO to stop storm surge. These gates, using computers and other technologies, could be used to satisify both sides of the MR-GO argument, including salt water intrusion. When integrated with the lunar tides, i.e. high and low tides, MR-GO could be designed to have only fresh water travel through it.
[Picture of Proposed Gates at MR-GO]
[Bush seeks $1.46 billion in new storm protection]
Notes
External links
- [Excerpt from The Control of Nature by John McPhee]
- ["Canal May Have Worsened City's Flooding"], Washington Post, Wednesday, September 14 2005
- ["MR-GO goes from hero to villain"], New Orleans Times-Picayune, Sunday, January 8 2006
- [Close MR-GO] site advocating closing the waterway
- [U.S. Waterborne Container Traffic by Port/Waterway in 2003]
- [MRGO Must Go - A coalition of Groups dedicated to closing the MRGO]
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