Mark Schleifstein

Mark schleifstein is an environmental journalist for the Picayune Times at Nola.com. He has written numerous articles about hurricane Katrina and exposing the unsafe levee conditions. 
Quick history about the times: It was basically a solid newspaper business, but with the rise of the Internet the business slowly began shrinking. The company had to downsize drastically along with numerous other newspaper companies. Due to growing utilization of the internet, Mark created Nola.com which allowed all publications to be posted online. In addition he also reduced the amount of days that the print papers were delivered from seven to three. This was necessary in order to make the business thrive again. Most of the community did not seem to like this. One of the more affluent citizens (millionaire) founded the “New Orleans times” to rival Mark’s paper. They distributed 7 days a week, but it’s range is not large enough to be considered competition. However, due to the founder being wealthy, the company usually doesn’t worry about money or going out of business.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, new flood walls were built in order to counter the storm surge from future storms. In addition, a 26 foot wall connecting three wetlands was built facing the Lower Ninth Ward. It was termed the “golden triangle”. The height of this wall could not be built any higher without the side effect of sinking into the sediment. If water spills over this wall, it can be reserved within the wetland areas. 

A similar flood wall was built along the industrial canal to a height of16 feet. On the western bank, only 40% of the levees had actually been completed. Since this area has never been built on before, the ground has not compacted enough to hold the levees. In the same area an industrial grade pump was installed. The purpose is meant to pump water out during hurricanes to reduce the amount of flooding. 

The Louisiana 2017 draft costal master plan indicates that 120 projects will be built, 150 billion dollars saved in future damage costs, along with over 800 jobs established. What they fail to mention is that the land lost in their future projection is still greater than the land gained.