It's the Sedimentology, Stupid

Bush is an oil man and oil men usually know somethin' about sediments. Sediments -- you know -- stuff like sand, and silt and clay. Most folks call it "dirt" -- some of us study it intently and none more so than oil geologists. This 'cause all the oil is in the sediments. George failed in the oil business and he certainly missed his basic sedimentary lessons. Between the time he and I stood in Jax Square, the rate of subsidence, that is, sinking -- down, down, down -- for the coastal parishes of LA was ~10 mm/yr. That's a shin-bone's worth every 5 years. In the past 35 years that means that Jax Square has sunk what? -- 10 feet! Maybe, maybe not -- the geodesists and sedimentologists are still hashing this all out -- some places going down faster than others -- some almost "stable". But it's inarguable that the Delta is subsiding. This is what deltas do best -- they subside. Why don't they just disappear? Well, 'cause every year a huge amount of dirt comes down the river (Big Muddy) and is spread out -- via over-flooding of natural levees -- atop the sinking real estate. So, to counter the subsidence there is up-building -- called aggradation. There can even be extension of the deltaic shoreline -- called progradation. In a natural state, deltas take care of themselves just fine. But -- when they are engineered, drilled, dredged, channeled, leveed, and drained -- well, this is when things go bad. Unfortunately for the Resurrection of New Orleans -- Mr. Bush's latest imperative from the Lord -- it's not just the delta that has been worked over.