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Corps Requests Removal or Levee Encroachments

Posted by: Judy Chang

16 October 2008 - 12:00pm

New Orleans homeowners have begun receiving letters from the Army Corps of Engineers demanding that they remove objects that obstruct nearby levees' rights of way, including fences and trees. If history repeats itself, this may get messy.

"By state law and federal Army Corps of Engineers regulation, levee rights of way must be maintained as undeveloped and unobstructed green space to ensure regular safety inspections, emergency flood-fighting or future levee development.

In heavily developed neighborhoods such as those hugging the lakefront levee in Metairie and Kenner, establishing those dividing lines between public and private property along the hurricane protection levees has been a historically thorny issue."

"It's too soon to know how many legitimate encroachments there might be today along the East Jefferson lakefront stretching 11 miles between the 17th Street Canal and the West Return Canal floodwall in Kenner.

But district representatives involved in the process aren't expecting this to be the same kind of heated encroachment sweep experienced more than a decade ago."

Full Story: Over the line? Homeowners told to clear levee intruders
Source: The Times-Picayune, October 15, 2008
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But why not just require basic accessibility, such as no-step entrances and wider doorways? It seems off the mark to argue that it's inappropriate to place this kind of requirement on homebuilders.
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