Levee Problems Aren’t Restricted To NOLA
From the Miami Herald: Lake Okeechobee draining may have to start quickly:
The slow draining down of Lake Okeechobee could begin as early as Wednesday.
With three tropical systems looming in the Atlantic Ocean, the Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it hopes to begin slowing the lake’s record-setting rise — and lowering the potential risk to its aging levee.
The level of the lake had been so low that there were fires in the lake bed earlier this year, but Tropical Storm Fay has more than re-filled the lake and the huge size of Hanna guarantees that more water is coming.
At least the Everglades are getting a decent drink, but if the lake fills too quickly, the 70-year-old Herbert Hoover Dike may not stand up to the strain. The levees were built following the 1928 hurricane that passed over the lake resulting in more than 1,800 deaths from the flooding.
There is also the problem caused by the burrowing of the South American sailfin catfish, one of our many invasive species.
But, other than that, No Problems 😈
12 comments
So what do South American Sailfin Catfish taste like? Curious penguins want to know (but not enough to brave those sharp quilled fins!).
— Badtux the Hungry Penguin
i s’pose you could use the sharp quilled fins for toothpicks after dinner.
You’re asking the wrong person, because I only eat what I catch and can get on the grill that day. Catfish ends up getting battered and deep fried down here, so you only taste the batter and the oil.
I don’t imagine anyone wants to eat one after trying to figure out how to get the hook out without puncturing yourself.
These fools buy weird animals for pets and then dump them when they get tired of them. That’s why we have major league pythons in the Everglades these days.
Or to hold the wounds closed on your way to the hospital.
we could have hunting seasons for python and catfish. the restless native would get to use their guns on something, plus they could sell the hides for exotic leather. ought to work, damn ner wiped out the buffalo ad the alligator like that.
They don’t hunt any better than they do anything else and we would have a major lead pollution problem. I’m not in favor of anything that encourages my fellow Floridians to use a weapon in any way [although I have considered an exemption to that policy for suicide 😈 ].
California has some MAJOR levee problems. Even the Governator has acknowledge it.
As near as I can tell, Jill, there hasn’t been a decent levee built since FDR and the ones that were built back then haven’t been maintained or up-graded. All part of out crumbling infrastructure.
Hmm, South Florida python hunting season. It would look a lot like… err… MONTY PYTHON! I suspect we’d find more python hunters killed than pythons, heh.
The biggest problem you’d have, I suspect, would be the collateral damage. Sort of like how some farmers have to put a sign on their cow saying “Not A Deer” to keep them alive during hunting season, heh! Except in your case, I suppose it would be random water hoses and such that would need a sign saying “Not A Python”…
My relatives had blaze orange blankets for their Holsteins that said “COW” on the sides. You can get them at farm supply places in New York.
I would suspect that half of the local water districts would lose either their storm water runoff or intake pipes to idiots, not to mention farming irrigation systems.
For some reason an old conversation between two locals just popped into my head.
One guy claimed that it was safe to catch diamondback rattlesnakes when they were swimming because they wouldn’t open their mouths for fear of drowning.
The other guy responded – who told snakes about drowning?
I suspect you know that you can certainly get bit by a swimming snake.
well, i was thinking that getting the gun-loving wackos out into the swamps where they could mistake each other for pythons or grab swimming rattlesnakes by their tails would be a real public service, but you’re right about the lead pollution problem.
You remember the school official who shot the ‘gator. Other people swore that the ‘gator was being fed, and once you get the first idiot who feeds a wild ‘gator, you have a problem. Once the ‘gator associates food and humans, it will swim towards any humans it sees.
These people are not bright.