A judge in Washington has ruled that federal authorities are liable for some of the catastrophic flooding that followed Hurricane Katrina and other storms—flooding blamed on a now-closed navigation channel.
The Associated Press reports that how much the government will have to pay in damages is unclear. Judge Susan Braden of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington set a hearing for next Wednesday in New Orleans to determine whether an agreement can be reached to have damages assessed by a mediator.
Today’s ruling came in a 2005 lawsuit that focuses on the now-closed Mississippi River Gulf Outlet—a navigation canal built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and blamed by many for flooding in St. Bernard Parish and New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward following Katrina.
The plaintiffs in the case are the St. Bernard Parish government and more than a dozen other property owners. The suit says the construction, dredging and operation of the navigation canal, known in south Louisiana as “Mister Go,” contributed to conditions that led to catastrophic flooding during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, Hurricane Rita weeks later and other storms. In effect, the suit argued, the damage caused by the flooding was an illegal “taking” of private property by the federal government without adequate compensation.
The MRGO was authorized by Congress in 1956, built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and closed in the years after Katrina.
Numerous other lawsuits filed against the federal government over Katrina-related flooding have failed in the decade since the disaster. A string of court rulings insulated the federal government from liability for billions of dollars in flood damage that many residents and business owners have blamed on the Corps’ design, construction and maintenance of levees and floodwalls.
