Dug in the 1960s form Breton Sound through the eastern wetlands of St. Bernard Parish as a shortcut between the Gulf and Port of New Orleans, the MR-GO quickly became an economic and environmental disaster. Traffic never came close to projections, and erosion caused by the project led to the loss of thousands of acres of marshes and swamps that once produced seafood and acted as a storm surge buffer for the metro area. The channel also figured prominently in channeling Hurricane Katrina storm surge into the Industrial Canal, where flood walls improperly built by the corps collapsed, leading to massive flooding and hundreds of deaths in the Lower 9th Ward.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:00:01 +0000
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