|
|
 |
Perspective | Legendary | Liberals | Shame! | Religion | Help! |
|
Bobby Jindal's Excellent Idea... Bobby Jindal, the GOP governor of Louisiana, has a problem heading slowly toward shore: a giant oil slick from the Gulf oil platform that was destroyed in an explosion. Today, he dredged up an excellent idea: Dredge up and create a series of barrier islands to extend the stated Chandeleur island chain. These sand islands would protect the sensitive marshland of Louisiana and perhaps Mississippi as well from billions of dollars in damages. The cost? $200 million. That’s right. Spend a small amount of money to avert ten times the disaster. Governor Jindal’s idea gets better. Since BP would be on the hook for the billions to clean up the marshes, BP should pay for the cost-saving barrier islands. BP saves 70-90 cents on the dollar in clean-up costs, the environmentalists have little to complain about because the islands protect the sensitive areas, and the state keeps tourist dollars flowing its way. Now for part three of the smart-idea trifecta: These barrier islands would also protect Louisiana from future storms. They would blunt the effect of the next Katrina-like storm surges, protecting New Orleans from the damage of the storm and also from the incompetent Democrats who still hold that city at their mercy. The people get a triple benefit from a project that is funded by the private sector while saving the private sector big money! The founders would be line-dancing if this kind of smart thinking were to become the norm in government. I don’t know what will happen with this idea. Some nut job will try to mess it up; that is the way of Washington. Hopefully, the idea will catch on with the right persons and the end result will be a set of privately-funded barrier islands protecting the shoreline from both oil spills and hurricanes. |
