Money to Rebuild New Orleans Levees

Dec. 15, 2005 — -- President Bush today requested an additional $1.5 billion in funding to help rebuild the levee system in New Orleans.

The administration's top reconstruction official, Donald Powell, announced this afternoon that the levee system will be rebuilt "better and safer than it's ever been before."

The $1.5 billion would be used to:

• armor the levee system with concrete and stone
• close three interior canals (London, 17th Street and Industrial)
• build state-of-the-art pumping systems for water to flow out of the canals into Lake Pontchartrain

President Bush met with Powell, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, head of the Army Corps of Engineers, this afternoon in the Oval Office before the announcement was made.

"It's important that people feel safe and move back into the area. It's important that business create jobs in that particular area. The levee system is vital to that process," Powell said.

Mayor Nagin said that this action says, 'Come home to New Orleans,' and said the levees will be stronger than ever. "These levees will be as high as 17 feet in some areas. We've never had that," he said. "We will have the holy trinity of recovery -- levees, housing and incentives."

The timeline to rebuild the levees is about two years and the officials said that the system would be rebuilt to pre-Katrina levels by next hurricane season.

Today's funding request will be a part of a $17.1 billion reallocation package and will likely be included in the Department of Defense Appropriations conference bill.

That reallocation package already included $1.6 billion for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to restore the levee system by the start of the next hurricane season -- today's funding request brings the total dedicated to levee rebuilding to $3.1 billion.

White House officials continue to work with Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and others on the total cost of the package, with discussions focusing on how much to reallocate from FEMA, which cannot spend money on rebuilding, and where to get the money from.