I’ll be interested to see how this turns out. Eve Troeh and I interviewed Wen Billiot and Chief Albert a few years ago. So let’s understand that at least some but not all of what I’m writing comes from that place reporters have, where a story once told is theirs forever. Still.

I kinda wonder whether all the talk about shooting and guns is real tension, or documentary-film-edited tension. I get that people are pissed off that they’re not included in Morganza to the Gulf, but Morganza to the Gulf has no funding in Obama’s 2012 budget, last I looked; so, you know, nobody is included. Terrebone & Lafourche are in DC this week asking for money to complete a study that could be the backbone for Morganza in the future.

It does seem Chief Albert has stepped up his publicity efforts since Eve and Zack Godshall and I were there back in 2007. Here he is saying they should leave in 2008 – after Gustav made the Isle impassable. Here’s Albert trying to get land again with an ABC story in 2009 (good aerial pic of the island’s remaining land).

I can’t tell about the documentarians, who I don’t know – whether they know that the Dardars are leading the charge against Albert Naquin about his right to rule. I mean, they probably do. But check what the Tri-Parish Times reported:

Both tribes recognize that the other is only trying to do what’s best for their people.

“We have our opinion and they have theirs,” said Naquin. “They’ve gotta to what they’ve gotta do, and so do we.”

Robichaux mirrored that sentiment, saying, “We’re just working really hard to try and provide resources to our citizens. Albert wants what’s best for his community in his eyes, just like we do.”

But, she also expressed frustration that, in trying to do the best for her people, they’ve been torn apart.

“We’re looking at brothers and sisters aunts and uncles – whole families that are pledging allegiance to the United Houma Nation or the BCCM. But we’re all part of the same family, and it’s very disheartening to see because it is one family,” said Robichaux. “This is part of what this federal recognition has done. It’s real unfortunate the federal government would still have a hand in our community and would choose to divide and conquer our people this.”

Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesperson Nedra Darling said that the recognition process is determined by federal law, and that it can’t recognize tribes simply because they do good work.

“The Department did not divide up a petitioning group, and the UHN petitioner has not yet provided evidence to demonstrate that it constitutes an existing Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law,” said Darling in an email to the Tri-Parish Times.

It’s hard to imagine that all that talk about machine guns means Edison Dardar’s gonna shoot Albert Naquin. And I believe strongly both in Edison’s right to tell his story and in this filmmaker’s right to tell it. I guess I’m skeptical because it looks like stuff is getting left out – less central but important things, like, the fact that subsidence in Louisiana isn’t only from oil canals; it’s also a consequence of years of managing the mighty Mississippi River the way the United States has.

Beyond that, I am remembering all the things the Billiots and others told us on that island. About asking for more bleach to clean up the mold and mildew on their trailers strapped to telephone poles as houses, each time it hurricaned. And about asking for more support from local and state and federal authorities for years. So I’m wondering whether this is more a story about two ways people in this place are responding to the end of support they’ve got from the safety net of their government – the end of their solid ground. Guess we’ll find out!

So Harry Shearer’s ticked off at NPR’s “censorship” of coverage for his film The Big Uneasy, and NPR’s Ombudsman rejects his claims. And the whole silly flap – on the NPR site, on twitter, on blogs – misses the point. Credible claims backed by evidence have been forwarded to President Obama – claims that show New Orleans may be in danger of repeating past mistakes because its protection against hazard has been misrepresented. Engineer and whistleblower Maria Garzino deserves a real answer for the trouble she’s been through.

Like Shearer, I, too, was disappointed that NPR didn’t cover New Orleans with greater depth during this last Katrinaversary. Unlike Shearer, and unlike NPR, I spent 2 and a half years submitting nearly 50 Freedom of Information Act Requests to the Corps at various branches, to the F.B.I, to the Environmental Protection Agency. The result was an investigation that aired in four parts last year on Southern California Public Radio, where I work.

You can find it here.

The series centered on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers whistleblower, Maria Garzino. The first reporter to mention her claims at all was Cain Burdeau, in the Associated Press office in Louisiana; he reported on her initial memo expressing concern about the testing process. I followed Garzino through her escalation of her complaints and the response from her superiors, Corps command in Washington, the G.A.O., and the Office of Special Counsel. These stories also made public for the first time documents and memoranda written by other Corps officials and consultants that confirmed that the Corps knew one thing while making public a different one with regard to the pumps.

Maria Garzino reported to her superiors – and other records show – that hydraulic pumps purchased by the Corps to place at the outfall canals have never proven themselves under test conditions that mimic a Katrina-like storm. A storm that surged into the lake and raised water and pressure on canal walls. Canal walls that were not built as well as they should have been: not as deep, and not on as solid a sediment bed as they planned for. Those miscalculations cost the canals breaches, including one more than 400 feet wide in the 17th street canal that flooded Lakeview, Broadmoor, and other neighborhoods of New Orleans.

An independent engineer, finally, last year, confirmed Garzino’s engineering judgment. In a letter that landed at the Obama White House, the Office of Special’s Final Independent Engineering Expert Opinion Report found “little logical justification” for contracting for untested, unreliable pumps, and validated many of Garzino’s concerns, even saying she did not go far enough in some cases.

It is not generally speaking the custom of the station-based public radio reporter to out their inner workings with freelance pitches, particularly to NPR. I’ll make an exception to say that NPR was offered these pieces, or segments thereof, or a conversation about them. The message I received was that they had their own coverage plans, and anyway, there had been enough about Katrina around that ‘versary. (In those moments, the frustration of the local reporter knows no bounds: I lived in New Orleans after Katrina, and with Eve Troeh, now at Marketplace, I grew so restless with people coming in and telling us how it is that we decided to tell people how it was for us, for residents, not parachutists. I’ve also been on the other side of the equation, working at NPR.)

As the narrator for Pushing Daisies would say, the facts are these: Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were spent the original contracting, not to mention millions more in add-on contracts to prop up a “temporary” system. The temporary system, supposed to be in place for 5 years, looks to be stretching out longer than the Corps originally promised, or promised in a modified way, or promises now. It’s 2010, and the temporary gates and pumps at the New Orleans outfall canals aren’t going anywhere for 3 years or more.

The Corps says everything works; the independent engineer and Maria Garzino say they don’t. The White House has been silent. Maria Garzino has risked her career and her health to seek an answer for herself and for New Orleans. I, for one, would like to see her get one, whatever it is.

A postscript: I’ll add a note to Alicia Shepard’s explanation of the Dibs List at NPR. First, I disavow any direct knowledge of how NPR operates that list now. I’ve been “out of the building” as they say for almost 4 years. But I sure dealt with the Dibs List before that, when working at Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Day to Day. Most of her explanation is dead-on, true, accurate, and valid. This caught my eye in Shepard’s blog:

When I was a producer, publicists, Harry Shearer and whoever else did in fact try to “game the system” to get on the best shows. And, yes, so did producers. But the thing is: the system IS gameable. If Tell Me More covers someone, ATC could well cover the same person, justifying it by saying that they’re taking a different tack or have an angle that the other show didn’t. Some people do appear on multiple shows; I have seen and participated in these battles first hand, and while I’d like to think our talk shows at KPCC are a little different, the fact is, the business of explaining what happens in the world is chaotic and messy. The Dibs List at NPR – as probably at any news org – tries to bring order to chaos. But a news org is an octopus on growth hormones: entropy happens, and chaos can win a day.
Just like with Frank Stoltze’s desk.

Harry Shearer interviewed Maria Garzino for his film coming out near the Katrinaversary: she’s the engineer who I talked to for the series Pumps Under Pressure. And whose work long before that helped Matt McBride understand the implications of what she saw.

And she still works for the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Best quote in reviews I’ve read so far, from the San Antonio Current:

ACE whistleblower Maria Garzino, in particular, delivers a quietly damning testimony that calls into question not only NOLA’s levees, but our country’s safety. We can read the existential unease in her eyes, and believe me, there’s nothing funny about it.

Dear Paul Westerberg:

Your song worked. I fell in love with this guy’s music long before he died today.

Playing pool near the Panhandle, in San Francisco, in fact.

I never travel far, without a little Big Star either. Assuming arguendo you still do.

Also, thanks for being awesome, mostly.

Sincerely,

Molly

Further reading:

The Box Tops

Big Star

If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool?
Standing right on campus, would he stamp us in a file?
Hangin’ down in Memphis all the while.

Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.”

Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice.
Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
Feeling like a hundred bucks, exchanging good lucks face to face.
Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s place.

I never travel far, without a little Big Star

Runnin’ ’round the house, Mickey Mouse and the Tarot cards.
Falling asleep with a flop pop video on.
If he was from Venus, would he meet us on the moon?
If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool, babe.

The lower Ninth Ward & Holy Cross lost a strong advocate when Pam Dashiell died the other day. I knew Pam because I was a journalist in New Orleans after Katrina, and we all knew her. She was formidable, and Katy Reckdahl does a lovely job of honoring her.

A month after the storm she was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation with Lynn Neary, talking about the 9th Ward’s desire to come back home. A little later, she tried valiantly to get traction for concerns she had about soil contamination after Katrina from Industrial Canal flooding. But concerns about soil contamination were shooed away by the Lousiana Department of Environmental Quality, and the EPA data didn’t help much either. Soil contamination remained (and remains) nothing more than a metaphor for a generalized distrust in the institutions that shape peoples’ lives: I talked to so many people who stuck with a general conspiracy-theory ideeer about it. I know it’s messed up, but they’ll never do anything about it. (cf. William Jefferson: He mighta had 90 grand in his freezer, but damned if the white guys ain’t got a hundred and ninety.)

Pam stuck with her neighborhood and kept it stuck together. The 9th ward kept city planning in the public eye, too: if any of that sticks, and New Orleans itselfsticks together, it’ll be because of the hopeful acts of individuals, who made up groups, who made the difference. People like Pam Dashiell.

Heather Booth and Jacob Brancasi are doing a genius little project. And what I like an awful lot about it is that you can do it with them.

Open Sound New Orleans asks you – in what is a slightly evolving and definitely getting easier manner – to put a sound up from the city. Not a story; a sound. Raw and rough is how they like it.

So I added a sound. It’s one I’m looking forward to hearing in a month or so. And there will be others. Sounds, I mean. Real and mapped.

Also, po-boys.

When I lived in New Orleans I paid $14 bucks a month for recycling. (Phoenix Recycling gives a discount if you belong to a neighborhood association, and they picked up plenty.) I love Phoenix Recycling. But the City of New Orleans used to recycle, and could again.

Now I live in Los Angeles, where the city lets you recycle every darn thing under the sun. It is almost possible if you think hard about it to skip the black bin entirely. You can recycle styrofoam here.

Anyway, New Orleans is doing a survey. Except apparently it’s a guerrilla survey; nobody seems to know about it. So, you know, I thought I’d mention it where I could.

You can do it in a bunch of ways. The easiest is to call the 311 number to do the survey over the phone. Also that is the fastest. And you can print it from the city’s site.

It was in the T-P, last Sunday, page A26 too. Dig through the pile and find it in there.

In a civilized world, in a city New Orleans can be again, recycling can and should be an option.

According to a press release from Mayor C. Ray Nagin’s office, the Times-Picayune is to blame for grossly misrepresenting the mayor and the chief of police, Warren Riley.

Well, we did it. Eve Troeh and I made a radio documentary about Louisianans’ sense of security in their lives, and we finished it, and it is airing…It aired last weekend on WWNO and WRKF, and will air again on WWNO on Friday.

This project was humbling, to say the least. One of my favorite authors is Julian Barnes. And in an interview with a literary website he had this to say about how he works differently in journalism and in fiction:

When I write a piece of journalism I want it to be completely understood at first reading as all journalism should be. In order to do that, you, of necessity, elucidate and simplify. And so the world appears more comprehensible. When I metaphorically move to the other part of my desk and write fiction, I am aware that my task is to represent complication and the fullness of the world. And to write the book, while certainly comprehensible and I hope enjoyable on first reading, would leave something in the reader’s mind to invite them back. I do keep this distinction firmly in mind. It’s easy, if you are doing both, for them to coalesce in some ways.

New Orleans is an impossibly knotty place. It is at once more American and less than any other city in the United States. To live there right is to love and work your way into the cracks and crevices of complication that line the human soul. So, pretty much, our project is fated to be a disaster from the start. Julian Barnes is right that journalism’s mission is to simplify and explain, and make the world comprehensible. But in many ways I find it impossible to let go of the cracks and crevices and specificity that tell me what’s true.

Now it’s up to listeners in Louisiana and Washington state (so far) (thank you Tacoma!) to tell us how we did.

Eve and I will have more thoughts to share as the show airs, but in the meantime: the reason this project exists is that we read and heard and watched reporters parachute in to Louisiana for two years, as we lived there, as we cheered like hell for Entergy turning on our neighbors’ power, as we watched – and helped – the city struggle back. As we lived there. And we wanted to tell people what it was like to do that.

I’m proud of the people we talked to, for thinking about their lives, and what they value, and why. In the real world, people don’t do that enough.

..as 43 might say.

My good friend Eve Troeh had a commentary on the Katrinaversary.

You could hear the hurt in her voice. But it was nothing compared to the hurt you could hear in her voice in Courtroom A about a week ago, when she had to confront the person accused of attacking and robbing her.

The two year mark has come and gone, and life continues here. When things have been tough here, people have looked really closely at each other, and asked, “are you going to stay?” I get this a lot, because I’m a newbie, because I’m from California, because my hesitation is palpable.

I’ve read some blogs judging Eve — along the lines of, mug a liberal, find a conservative, or dismissing her as a dilettante, a flighty passer-through who never committed to living here.

That’s not fair to her, and it’s a way of understanding the city that can’t possibly nourish it. New Orleans is a port town, a place where cultures have always mixed, where new blood has melted together with old blood, where people have long come and gone. What that means is there’s more than one way to love this place. If everyone had to be a 7-generation Uptowner, it wouldn’t be the city that so many people would love.

To criticize people for leaving is as un-New Orleanian as telling other people they’re going to hell is un-Christian. It misses the purpose entirely. And New Orleans will be a step closer to healed when that stops.