"It's like killing a fly with a sledge hammer"
The New York Times today gives front page treatment in this article and the above illustration to the slow and expensive pace of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers clean up efforts in Mississippi and Louisiana. The article confirms what local folks told me when I visited the Gulf Coast a couple of weeks ago to see a contractor client's clean up operations first hand.
Local leaders and contractors blame Corp imposed red tape and a one house at a time approach for the problem:
There are many reasons for the difference between the lack of progress in Pascagoula and the quick cleanup in the Biloxi area. But officials here point fingers at what they consider the No. 1 culprit: the federal government and, in particular, the Army Corps of Engineers.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Harrison County, the home of Biloxi, and Jackson County, where Pascagoula is located, each had about 10 million cubic yards of debris to clean up. Both counties took up the federal government on its offer to foot the bill.
But while Harrison County and all but one of its cities hired contractors on their own, Jackson County and its cities, at the urging of the federal government, asked the Army Corps to take on the task. Officials in Jackson County said it was a choice they had regretted ever since.
The cleanup in Jackson County and its municipalities has not only cost millions of dollars more than in neighboring counties, but it is also taking longer. The latest available figures show that 39 percent of the work was complete in Jackson County, while 57 percent was done in Harrison County and its cities that are managing the job on their own, according to federal records.
A recycler of metal from ruined refrigerators likened the approach taken by the Corps to "killing a fly with a sledge hammer."
The Clarion Ledger reports this morning on the rapid progress and efficiency of the locally led clean up effort in George County, Mississippi.
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