Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Trees got laid

The Trees got laid



The long-running controversy over the Trees at Berkeley was laid to rest recently.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about, "they" (trained arborists, SF Chronicle 2008.) recently cut down the trees outside of the Cal-Berkeley Memorial Stadium where protesters have been roosting since shortly after I left Campus (the second time), or so it seems. There's no need to worry-- unless, of course the Bears hit the skids after this past weekend's 66-3 routing of Wazzu (that's in the State right to the left of Idaho, for you no-Pac 10'ers. Yes, SEC, I'm talkin' to YOU. Did you figure that one out yet?-- next to Idaho, yes the State that is well-known for the potato... NO, that's OHIO State... nevermind)

Let's not kid ourselves-- there will be trees there long after there is a sports complex, a stadium, or people left on this planet to inhabit either. Unless, of course, sea level rise turns Strawberry Canyon into Salmon Spawning ground. (ref. USACE EM 1110-X-XXX on Sea Level Rise Which reminds me of another Cal story. This one about a young lad giving it all he had on the 50-yard line... (okay, it was the time I "christened" the new grass field in Memorial Stadium just after they, um laid it.)

So anyway back to Berkeley and the Trees. If you think about it, it's really a "patriotic" thing at Cal to axe Trees. We've been making a tradition out of it since the 1920's (ref. axe story, UC Rally Committee, http://ucrc.berkeley.edu/visitors/specialevents/biggame/axe_story.php). And in fact, we have certain Bear (rumored to be born in a North Side Fraternity House, and in a school cartoon ref-- Oski Cartoon Daily Californian) who has been kicking Tree ass for years (ref. http://clog.dailycal.org/tag/oski/)... except it used to be a Native American Indian and he kicked that ass too. So for all of you who are boo-hooing the trees, remember that.

Except, of course if the Bears hit a losing streak. Then I'm declaring it Oski Habitat and we're bringing back the trees. And maybe the protesters too-- I never even got a shot at my Dream Date with Dumpstermuffin (ref.
KTVU.com
Related To Story




Cal Tree Sitters

• September 9. 2008
• SLIDESHOW: Last Stand At UC Berkeley Grove; Tree-Sitters Surrender
• BERKELEY: David Stevenson Reports On Tree-Sitting Protest Finally Coming To End
• BERKELEY: Jana Katsuyama Reports On Reaction To End Of Tree-Sitter Protest
• LAST STAND: Raw Video Of Arrests Tuesday At UC Tree-Sitters Protest
• BERKELEY: Kraig Debro Reports On Police Closing In On Tree-Sitters With Crane, Scaffolding

• September 8. 2008
• BERKELEY: Lloyd LaCuesta Reports On End Drawing Near For UC Tree-Sitting Protest
• SANTA CRUZ: Robert Handa Talks To UC Santa Cruz Tree Sitters About Berkeley Protest
• Zero Hour Passes; Defiant Tree-Sitters Remain
• BERKELEY: Kraig Debro Reports On Tree-Sitters Ignoring Deadline, Staying Put
• BERKELEY: Kraig Debro Reports On Deadline Nearing For Tree-Sitters

• September 5, 2008
• SLIDESHOW: Protestors Decry The Felling Of Trees At UC Berkeley

• BERKELEY: Renee Kemp Reports On The University's Move To Start Cutting Down The Trees


• August 21, 2008
• BERKELEY: Tom Vacar Reports On Berkeley Trimming Trees Around Tree-Sit

• August 5, 2008
• BERKELEY: Renee Kemp Reports On UC Officials Pushing To Close Tree-Sitter Supporters' Median Strip Camp
• Tree-Sitters Support Encampment Draws UC's Ire

• July 23, 2008
• BERKELEY: Ken Wayne Reports On Negotiations Between Police And Tree-Sitting Protesters
• Treesitters Stage High-Wire Re-Supply Mission
• BERKELEY: Kraig Debro Reports On Tree-Sitters' Defiant Stand Against Judge's Ruling Against Them

• July 2, 2008
• BERKELEY: Renee Kemp Reports On Hospitalization Of "Dumpster Muffin" After Tree-Sitters Arrest
• RAW VIDEO: Tree-Sitter "Dumpster Muffin" Collapses During Arrest

• June 18, 2008
• BERKELEY: Renee Kemp Reports On UC Sports Center Ruling And Rising Tensions With Protesters
• MUFFIN'S STAND: Watch Video Of Environmental Activist Dumpster Muffin's Stand Against Arborists
• BERKELEY: Jesse Gary Reports On Mounting Tensions At UC Tree Protest

• June 17, 2008
• BERKELEY: Renee Kemp Reports On Clashes Between Tree-Sitters And Aborists Hired By University
• BERKELEY: UC Berkeley Spokesman Dan Mogulof Talks About Tuesday's Action At Oak Grove

• Feb. 19, 2008
• BERKELEY: Claudine Wong Reports On Removal Of Tree-Sitters' Lines And Supplies

• Nov. 15, 2007 -- Arrests
• TREE-SITTER ARRESTS: Video Of The UC Berkeley Tree-Sitters Arrests
• BEREKELY: Jade Hernandez Reports On UC Tree-Sitter Arrests

• BERKELEY: Heather Holmes Reports Tree-Sitting Activists Promising To Continue Protest
• BERKELEY: Ken Pritchett Reports On Suspicious Arson Attack On Van That May Be Linked To Tree Protesters
• SLIDESHOW: UC Berkeley Treesitters Await Fate
• HAYWARD: David Stevenson Reports On First Day Of Court Hearings Addressing Proposed UC Sports Complex
• BERKELEY: Joe Fonzi Looks At Controversy Surrounding Proposed UC Training Facility
• FREMONT: David Stevenson Reports On Judge Postponing Decision On UC Tree Protesters
• BERKELEY: David Stevenson Reports On Police Clashing With Protesters Over Fence Around Tree-Sitters
• Protesters Shed Clothes To Save UC Berkeley Trees
• BERKELEY: Gasia Mikaelian Reports On Injunction Putting UC Stadium Plan In Limbo
• Judge Blocks UC Tree Removal; Stadium Plan On Hold
• BERKELEY: Claudine Wong Reports On UC Berkeley Slumber Party By Tree Protesters



UC Allows Tree-Sitters To Get Food And Water

UPDATED: 10:04 am PDT June 23, 2008

Zomblog http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=25

http://video.nbc11.com/player/?id=267242


).

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Gustav Edition, September 3, 2008

Gustav has prompted yet another, albeit infrequent DR Report. I'd like to be reporting from the Home Office on St. Anthony Street aka Mississippi River Mile Marker 97, but instead I'm riding a train on account of Louis Armstrong International Airport (aka Moisant Field, or MSY if you ever wondered what that meant) still being closed and most of New Orleans still without electricity. This ain't a photo op, a telethon, or anybody else's glory-hole-wishful-boasting (G.H.W.B for short) but rather I wanted to share with you all my most recent Hurricane Experience ("are you Experienced?")

It seems like only three years ago that I sent out a similar Report while we all watched Katrina-- what some people in New Orleans call "The Thing" (Rose 2005, etc.) For some of you I guess it's been a while and you might think that I only communicate during hurricanes or maybe I was dead. "Hell, I even thought I was dead till I found out it was just that I was in Nebraska" (Eastwood. 1992) Well in fact it's been New Orleans not Nebraska and no I'm not dead-- that was somebody else who was shot and killed at 1009 St. Anthony Street during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (City Business. August 22, 206)

Despite living in Louisiana for most of the last 10 years, Katrina was my first evacuation and Gustav only the second. This most recent time was by air-- Southwest Airlines-- from New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport aka Moisant Field (MSY). In fact I had Labor Day plans with my family anyway, so in some ways this is "working out quite well for me" (Bush. 5 Sept 2005). Having done the best I could to protect my property and get out of harm's way I can't imagine a better place to be than with Family.

Unfortunately as of Wednesday New Orleans remains largely without power except for at the Superdome, in the French Quarter, and a few spots Uptown (based on the reports I've been receiving from the "holdouts" who stayed behind.) Oh well, at least folks can still go for a round at Johnny White's and then down the street for dinner at Bacco's. As for myself, I continue to ride it all out on the West Coast as I did for Hurricane Rita in late September 2005. It's disappointing that after three years of preparation about the only thing we've gotten better at is leaving town en masse; just like after Katrina, the word we are getting is "We are still assessing things"-- bringing to mind the tales of senseless red-tape and clipboard jockeying that became so infamous during that debacle.

Gustav was a rather "average" Cat 2/Cat 3 Hurricane, despite Mayor C. Ray Nagin's initially calling it "The Storm of the Century" and later downgrading it to "maybe the mother-in-law or the ugly sister of all storms" (AP, 2 Sept. 2008); the man does have a way with words. The storm skirted New Orleans on its way along the Highway 90 coast, home to communities such as Houma (pronounced Home-a)/ Terrebonne (Tare-a-bone) Parish, Lafourche (La-foosh) where Port Fourchon ("Foosh-on") is located, and of course through my old stomping grounds-- Morgan City (if you need help with that one then you need to either start going to classes or drink more spiced rum.) We in Louisiana always get a kick out of the funny linguistic concoctions that the television talking heads come up with to describe our homes.

Just as amusing this time around was the ever-creative coverage and descriptions by major networks of the Levee Overlapping and Oversquirting televised throughout the day (it's usually called Overtopping by most levee experts-- see Moss and Eller. 2006) And then there were "professional opinions"-- one reporter's comment that what New Orleans really needs is "Levees hundreds of feet" in height. I don't have the heart to tell him that in Katrina 80% of Downtown New Orleans was inundated by a storm surge that hardly reached 10 feet-- well below the tops of the concrete floodwalls built to contain it. I guess that's why he's doing television and gets to be The Fool in the Rain (as in "I'm.... standing.... out here... in the.... rain and... .blowing winds..... (unintelligible wind noise)..." What a bunch of yahoos-- perhaps they ought to just stick with covering the drunks riding it out in the French Quarter; at least that's amusing in "proper" ways and doesn't leave 2 million South Louisiana citizens-- not to mention the rest of America-- watching from afar with more questions and confusion than reliable information.

This "Cat 2/ Cat 3 Level" hurricane served to be a mild test for the New Orleans Hurricane Protection Systems. Even the much- ballyhooed gates and pumping systems installed at the mouth of the three New Orleans drainage outfall canals where they empty into Lake Pontchartrain were pressed into service for at least an entire hour. For those of you have followed this issue, that last sentence is indeed mild sarcasm.

But Make No Mistake; this is no way for us to go boldly into the future-- the floodwalls we watched Overtopping/ Overlapping/ Oversquirting on television are "vintage" and received some additional improvements after Katrina, but we have a long way to go. Improvements are planned for the purpose of closing off the Industrial Canal with surge protection gates during storms, but the project is still in the planning phase (anybody sensing a theme here?).

If we are to have a useful discussion about the future of New Orleans-- and the future of American Civil Engineering Infrastructure as a whole for that matter-- it cannot be through discombobulated sound bytes. It was disappointing, to say the least that despite three years since Katrina we still are presenting a partial and mis-informed picture to the American Public. As Col. Bedey, head of the US Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Protection Project for New Orleans, himself told me this year "Don't believe everything." (Rosenberg. 2008)

Nonetheless, the footage we all saw the other day of water lapping, squirting, overtopping the floodwalls along the Industrial Canal deserves some explanation. The Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IHNC, aka Industrial Canal) is part of the MRGO/ GIWW/ IHNC system-- an artificial waterway which began construction in the 1920's and has been continuously modified ever since-- both by natural and human influence. Before the canal neighborhoods existed on the site and and to the west existed swamp and wetland; even today one can still see a few remaining cypress tree stumps and knees in the adjacent Bayou Bienvenue. It is the loss of this natural storm buffer and the artificial channelization of water that brings these waters to our front door step in such great magnitude-- the root cause of the Oversquirting, as it were. Yes, we humans bring much of this upon ourselves.

Meanwhile, the future of New Orleans and Coastal Louisiana communities dims at the prospect of having to vacate for up to a week even for such a moderate storm. I re-iterate the call of experts such as Paul Kemp, oceanographer for the Audobon Society, who believes that New Orleans needs to be protected to a no-evacuate level of reliability. We need safe shelters, but we shouldn't have to leave our communities in order to find them; there is plenty of high ground right at home and I can assure you that We Have the Technology. This is what it will take in order for New Orleans and Coastal America to prosper for another 300 years.

DR



References

AP. Sept 2, 2008 "Gustav only sideswipes New Orleans as levees hold" by Robert Tanner and Vicki Smith

Bush, B. 5 Sept. 2005. Quotation from Marketplace, see

City Business, 22 Aug. 2006 "Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home to display Katrina flag memorial. Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home and Cemetaries is putting up a display of 1,464 white flags to mark the number of lives lost in Louisiana as a result of Hurricane Katrina."

Eastwood. 1992. "Unforgiven" Little Bill explaining his absence to English Bob. l

Moss R. and Eller M. 2006. "Estimating the Probability of Failure and Associated Risk of the California Bay Delta Levee System" see Figure 1. Diagram showing the three loading functions and six failure mechanisms associated with levee failure.

Rose. C. 2005, etc. Times-Picayue. New Orleans.

Rosenberg, D. 2008. Personal Communication at meeting of University of New Orleans Chapter of the Society of Military Engineers,.


and just in case you missed it the first time around:

When the Levee Breaks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7geGvdb5RYU